Space World to Invest $500 Million in Telecom Infra

New Delhi, Dec 20 (PTI) Telecom infrastructure firm Space World is planning to invest USD 500 million in building an optical fibre cable-based network across 13 cities in the next four years, senior officials of the company said on Wednesday.

Space World Group Founder and Chairman Ankit Goel said the company is in advanced stages of discussion with global infrastructure funds to raise USD 300 million and expect the deal to close in the first quarter of 2024.

"We aspire to be the largest neutral digital bandwidth provider in the country. It will take us 6-12 months to lay the optical fibre network before we start selling them. We provide our infrastructure to internet service providers and mobile network operators for providing services," Goel said.

He said the existing fibre network has been largely put in place in the country to connect mobile towers, but there is demand to handle data centre bandwidth as well with growth in data and advent of 5G services, generative AI, among others.

"We are in the process of raising USD 300 million from digital infrastructure funds. We are in advanced stages of securing a non-binding agreement with them. Our plan is to invest around half a billion dollars over 4 years. It will be a mix of debt, equity and our own capital," Goel said.

The company is laying fibre through its subsidiary Constl.

Space World Co-Founder and Director Radhey R Sharma said the infrastructure the company is building is for 20-25 years will give enterprise customers an alternative.

He said the government's move to ease Right of Way (RoW) rules will help accelerate the rollout of OFC.

Both Goel and Sharma earlier founded Space Teleinfa, which they sold to Brookfield Infrastructure-sponsored Tower InvIT for Rs 900 crore in March 2022.

Goel said the company plans to cover 13 cities initially over a period of four years and expand gradually to other parts of the country.