Hathway Cable and Datacom, a cable television and broadband Internet Service Provider, will spend nearly ₹500 crore in the next three years to offer high-speed broadband and wired Internet. It is targeting nearly 5 lakh customer base, said Rajan Gupta, Managaing Director, Hathway Cable.

The company entered Chennai offering 200 MBPS speed and 1,000 GB data of wired internet. This is a new benchmark in broadband and wired internet market with high-speed connectivity, he told newspersons.

On reasons for selecting Chennai for the launch, Gupta said the average consumption of monthly data on wireline was 90 GB, double the average when compared with the rest of the country.

Consumption of content like Netflix, Amazon Play, HOOQ and Voot, and with e-commerce and communication moving online, the need for high-speed and unlimited data download has created a huge demand for wireline fibre broadband, said Gupta.

Commercial launch

For the last three months, the company had been doing a soft launch in the city with commercial launch today. The company is ready to connect nearly 4 lakh homes, he said.

The company has started with two plans — at a monthly payment of ₹999, a customer will get speed of 150 MBPS and 1,000 GB data download and for ₹1,299 it will be 200 MBPS and 1,000 GB data, he said. The high-speed connectivity has been possible with Hathway providing a fibre solution.

It will provide the high-speed service through Gigabit Passive Optical Networks Fibre-to-Home technology prevalent in many Asian countries, including Singapore. The entire investment, which will be through internal accruals, will be to set up a new data centre in Chennai, infrastructure and people.

The company has already hired nearly 200 people in Chennai, and plans to add another 100 in a year, he said.

Share price of Hathway Cable closed at ₹44.15 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Thursday, down by 1.67 per cent.