Bharti Airtel on Friday said it will invite other telecom operators for
equity participation in its managed services company, in which it has
bought out Alcatel-Lucent's entire stake for an undisclosed amount.
"We
just did it so we will talk to companies over a period of time. We
would be open to everybody," Bharti Enterprises Deputy Group CEO and MD
Akhil Gupta told reporters at New Delhi.
Asked if the company is
open to an alliance with RIL and other dual technology operators, he
said: "Not at this point. We have just taken it back and separated it as
a company but yes the model will be that we will invite everybody."
Bharti
Airtel has said it would buy out Alcatel-Lucent's entire stake in a
joint venture company that manages the fixed-line and broadband network
for Bharti.
Bharti and the Indian unit of Alcatel-Lucent had
formed the 26:74 joint venture, Alcatel Lucent Managed Network Service
India Ltd, in 2009 to manage Bharti's fixed-line and broadband networks.
The five-year USD 500 million network contract for the joint venture was to end in April 2014.
Bharti
Airtel has said it was introducing a new business model for managing
fixed line and DSL broadband networks, on the lines of Indus Towers.
The
company's subsidiary Bharti Infratel holds 42 percent stake in Indus
Towers, with the remaining stakes in the company with Vodafone (42
percent) and Idea (16 percent).
Bharti Airtel offers broadband,
data and telephone services (fixed line) in 87 Indian cities and has a
customer base of 3.3 million. Out of them, 1.4 million are subscribed to
broadband/Internet services.