Being positioned as a complete Net company, bplnet.com will look at being `more than an ISP', offering what it calls premium products and solutions. "We will offer end-to-end Internet solutions, including dial-up access for individuals and businesses, high-speed digital subscriber lines (DSL), managed enterprise networks, application services hosting and co-location services to our customers," said bplnet.com chief executive officer R Lakshminarayanan. It is currently offering dial up access at Rs 650 for 80 hours and Rs 990 for 150 hours. It will also offer a pre-paid global roaming to its customers for access of Internet services across 85 countries soon.

The company is targeting to launch its ISP services across 31 cities, including Calcutta, Hyderabad and Chandigarh, in the next phase. It has already launched operations in Bangalore, Pune, Chennai, Mumbai, Coimbatore and Cochin, besides Delhi. With this, the ISP segment is set to hot up further with HCL Infinet also planning to roll out its services simultaneously across 40 cities within a fortnight. Category A licencee, bplnet.com, will also set up its own international gateways in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi and lay about 6,000 km of fibre-optic cable network for offering high bandwidth access. It is also looking at several strategic investments in venture capital funded start-ups whose business will be complementary to bplnet.com's core operations. These will be funded through Rs 45 crore BPL Innovation Capital, according to Lakshminarayanan.

As a first step, bplnet.com will soon announce a joint venture with online financial services company AFX. Interestingly, bplnet.com will be the first ISP to promise a certain quality of service (QOS). "We are redefining the way we look at this business as we will measure and adopt QOS as a cornerstone of our business strategy. On one hand, we will invest in creating a scalable and reliable Internet Protocol (IP) infrastructure, and on the other, build an Internet EcoSystem through our alliances," said Lakshminarayanan.