Tata Teleservices Ltd is setting up a 2,000-seat call centre each at Pune and Hyderabad. While the investment size is not available, going by industry standards the project cost will be an estimated Rs 44-45 crore (Rs 440-Rs450 million) per call centre.

The Pune centre will take care of the north, while Hyderabad will attend to customer calls from the south.

M A Madhusudan, deputy chief operating officer, Tata Tele, told the media in Chennai on Tuesday, "The company's strategy is to further penetrate the markets in its existing circles on one hand and to establish a national footprint on the other, through a rollout in 11 new circles."

Besides operating in Delhi, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Karnataka, AP, Tamil Nadu, Chennai and Gujarat, the company has acquired licenses to operate in Bihar, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Kolkata, Orissa, Punjab, UP (East), UP (West) and West Bengal.

By the year-end, Tata Teleservice hopes to stamp its footprints on about 17 circles.

In Tamil Nadu, for one, having already invested Rs 820 crore (Rs 8.2 billion), the telecom services provider is investing another Rs 280 crore (Rs 2.8 billion) in the current financial year to beef up its infrastructure and network.'

This total Rs 1,100 crore (Rs 11 billion) investment, includes Rs 233 crore (Rs 2.33 billion) on licence fee, Rs 647 crore (Rs 6.47 billion) on network development (which includes setting up the backbone, switch expansion and microwave cloud), Rs 105 crore (Rs 1.05 billion) on infrastructure building and Rs 70 crore (Rs 700 million) on support services.

The company saw a Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) turnover in the state in its first full year of operations (2003-04) and expects to turn in a top line of Rs 350 crore (Rs 3.5 billion) in the current fiscal.

Tata Tele is putting in place a 4,300 km long backbone, which includes 2,700 km of highway run, in the state. In the next three months, the company targets to complete its phase-I covering 80 towns in Tamil Nadu.

In phase-II stretching the rest of the year, its plans to cover 145 towns. As of today, Tata Indicom, which started its services in the state in November 2002, is present in eight towns in the state, offering both mobile and fixed wireless services.

Apart from network expansion, Tata Tele is gearing to enter pre-paid services. In May, it will launch its net connectivity offering the service at Re 1 a minute.

It has also recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Qualcomm to use its BREWChat solution to offer push-to-talk services.

The solution will also extend to wireless applications and services in India to enable Tata Indicom customers to download games, ringtones, communication, e-mail and business focussed applications.

BREWChat also gives Tata Teleservices the ability to differentiate its services with multmedia messaging service, web browsers and customised user interfaces The push-to-talk will give a walkie-talkie facility within a certain closed group.