Power Grid Corporation of India Limited, a state-owned power and telecom service provider has acquired a Unified License from the Department of Telecom, it informed the BSE yesterday. The Unified License will allow Power Grid to offer telecom and Internet services. The government-owned company didn't clarify on how it plans to us this license: to launch telecom services publicly (for which it will need spectrum), to launch Internet services, or to set a private telecom infrastructure in-house. Or maybe it's thinking about broadband over powerline all over again, almost 10 years after it first considered it... Remember that back in 2008, Power Grid Corp had talked about plans to bring Internet Internet to consumers, although these plans never materialized. The 2008 plan included a full-fledged consumer Internet, Cable TV service starting with metro cities as well as entry into Entertainment, mobile towers, and the Data Centre segment. It had claimed to be in discussion with an unnamed venture for the entertainment segment, at that time. From the filing in 2008: - POWERGRID is also looking forward to getting into Entertainment Business, Tower Business, Data Centre Business, Gigabit Knowledge network etc. - Discussion under progress for a Joint Venture (JV) with one of the state and a private player to launch entertainment services. - Discussion also under progress for entering in to an Agreement with consortium of Cable Operators to provide Television services / internet services and other related entertainment services in Metropolis. - Upon successful venturing into these new business areas, POWERGRID’s Telecom revenue…
