Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL), promoter of the MTS telecom brand, is foraying into the enterprise segment by offering internet hosting services. The company will focus on data offerings such as high-speed internet to expand its presence.

“Its very difficult to differentiate in a highly cluttered market like India. We will continue to focus on data (offerings). We have already launched Mblaze (for retail consumers), the mobile broadband high-speed USB stick in 55 cities.”

To expand its presence in the enterprise broadband segment, the company inaugurated its level three (security standard) data centre in Chennai on Thursday with an initial investment of about Rs 13 crore.

The centre spread across about 17,000 sq ft will cater to SSTL’s customer-centric offerings such as value-added services; internal applications including ERP (enterprise resource planning), and revenue-centric operations such as hosting websites for customers, said Rajeev Batra, chief information officer of SSTL. “The green data centre will be backed up by a data recovery facility in Noida in a couple of months. Within the internet hosting space, the existing established players are all (data centres) running full. They will have to build additional capacity to service customers. We are entering the space to tap the opportunity,” Batra said.

Moreover, enterprises in metros prefer to set up their own servers but companies in tier-II and tier-III locations are wary of the investments. “MTS will target that segment to expand the hosting services business,” he added.

SSTL is a joint venture between Russia’s Sistema and the Shyam group in India. While the former is the major shareholder with 74 per cent stake, Shyam group owns 23.5 per cent and the rest is publicly held.

If market conditions are favourable, SSTL will be listed in the Indian bourses by the third or fourth quarter of this year. The company has spectrum to provide mobile telephony services in all the 22 circles. It reported close to 40 lakh customers as of February 2010.