Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL) is making news again. Be it the company?s outrageous bids of Rs 86,000 crore to snap up 13 telecom circles in 1995, the spat with Dhoots over ownership of Datacom or the current sale of 95% in Infotel Broadband to Reliance Industries ? Nahata and HFCL have hogged the limelight all the way.
The journey started in 1987 when a group of three young men ?Mahendra Nahata, Vinay
Maloo and Deepak Malhotra? dreamt of harnessing the untapped potential of the telecom sector. Not everyone could conceive that the Indian telecom story would turn out the way it has, but the trio had enough foresight to put their best foot forward. HFCL started by manufacturing transmission equipment and soon expanded its product portfolio to manufacture access equipment, optical fibre cable, accessories and terminal equipment.
HFCL?s R&D areas range from exploration of new technologies, designing of radio, optical transmission equipment and access equipment and development of software solutions that include a high level of network management systems.
A subsidiary, HFCL Infotel (HITL), was launched in October 2000. This arm is spearheading the telecommunication services drive in Punjab by providing services across the spectrum including fixed line telephony, CDMA based mobile telephony, PCOs, intelligent network services and ISDN, under the brand name ‘Connect’.
With a subscriber base of over 1.2 lakhs, steady revenue streams and services in 22 cities and towns, Connect is a leading brand in Punjab and Chandigarh for providing end-to-end communication solutions, the company claims.
The Rs 4,800-crore windfall the company has gained notwithstanding, it is clear that the company would have had no chance of clinching spectrum in even half the number of circles, if not for the backing from RIL. With the Reliance brand name behind it, and an untapped broadband penetration, there is a huge opportunity going forward, Gaurav Dixit from CARE said.