Idea Cellular 1000Cr Tamil Nadu Investment

Idea has given contract for Network Rollout to Huawei.
Telecom major Idea Cellular will invest Rs.1,000 crore ($205 million) over the next three years in Tamil Nadu to expand its network, a top company official said Thursday.

"The company will invest Rs.1,000 crore to expand its cell sites to 2,400 by 2010 and presence to 1,200 towns in the state. By 2011 the number of cell sites will be 4,000 and the presence will be in 3,300 towns," Himanshu Kapania, director (operations) of Idea, told reporters while launching the company's services here Thursday.

Idea, which launched services in Tamil Nadu last month, now has has 1,700 cell sites in 600 towns in the state and has enrolled over 100,000 subscribers so far.

Citing Idea's successful penetration into the telecom market in the state, Kapania said: "It only shows that subscribers are not satisfied with the existing service providers. The call drop numbers are huge. We hope to garner subscribers with our service quality."

Idea will also set up a 2,086-km optical fibre network.

He added that 12 million of its total 43 million subscribers are in Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

In Tamil Nadu the company will open 60 outlets to roll out its services.

Idea will will invest around Rs.7,500 crore this year to expand its services into new areas, Kapania added.