The company plans to pump in about Rs 50 crore in the first phase duringwhich it will launch the service in 12 large cities, beginning with Delhiand Mumbai within three months. It will be fully funded by internal accrualsand private funding by the promoters of PrimeSoftex and Surya Roshni, whichhas around 55 per cent stake in this listed company.

Towards early next year, it will consider an IPO or private placement tofund the second phase of rollout across 100 cities of 5 lakh pluspopulation, PrimeSoftex director V Agarwal told The FinancialExpress.

``We are looking at providing a 100 per cent reliable Net access through thetraditional technologies which is up 24 hours and that will be our USP,''said Agarwal. The company has a Delhi licence at present and has applied fora national ISP licence. It also plans to set up eight internationalgateways, he added. Besides, it has taken on board a top professional fromone of the leading ISPs as the managing director for the new venture whichmay be spun off.

It has bought equipment from Sun Microsystems and Cisco and is negotiatingwith Wipro to provide total software and integration solutions.

PrimeSoftex has a paid-up capital of Rs 16 crore and had a modest Rs 2.5turnover this year. It took over the Bangalore-based subsidiary of a USfirm, TechDrive Software, recently in a pure stock deal for Rs 15 crore.TechDrive is developing two B2B portals, one of which is targeted at themarine industry. It will invest between Rs 8 crore to 10 crore in these. Atthe same time, it is also looking to acquire an IT-enabled firm in the USAand has appointed a top management consultant for the same, according toAgarwal.