Instead of acquiring or investing in portals and ISPs for growth, the company is looking at forming strategic alliances, according to Mr N Srinath, CEO of Tata Internet Services.

Speaking to the press, at the launch of Tatanova in Chennai, he said, "We will provide them the advantage of the Tata brand and a national network, apart from marketing services and access to international bandwidth, while they have to bring their infrastructure and network to the table".

The company is currently talking to eight regional and local ISPs operating in areas where Tatanova has no presence, but is yet to finalise any deal. It is also in the process of putting up its own international satellite gateways in Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. At present, it is getting part of its 35 mbps capacity from VSNL and the rest from C&W and Teleglobe. From dial-up and ISDN, the company plans to move to co-axial cable and set-top boxes and broadband as soon as it comes. It will work in close co-ordination with other related group companies - Tata Tele Services and TCS.

The ISP is planning to invest Rs 500 crore (fully funded by the group) over the next five years, of which it has already spent Rs 100 crore so far. It is expecting to break-even in four-five years and a turnover of Rs 70 crore in the first year of operation. The company plans to develop and run portals, create network infrastructure, set up Internet data centres, provide a wide spectrum of industry-specific value-added services, apart from offering Internet connectivity to consumers and corporates.After Chennai, the Internet services will be launched in Delhi and Kolkata.

The company is targeting over 1 lakh retail Internet subscribers by the end of this year.