Broadband
One Broadband crosses half-a-million customers
KOLKATA: ONEOTT iNTERTAINMENT Ltd (OIL), a subsidiary of NXTDigital Ltd the integrated media vertical of the Hinduja Group, has achieved yet another milestone by crossing half-a-million home broadband customers to enter in the top five private wired ISPs in India, joining groups like Reliance JIO combine, Bharti Airtel, Voda-Idea and ACT.
OIL’s vision is to continue to drive the digital inclusion agenda in India by connecting homes and offices online while following its core values of employee first, customer responsiveness, innovation, joyfulness and simplicity. The company in the final stages of launching smart security, smart lighting and IoT solutions for smart living, thereby, bringing ‘Future-To-The-Home powered on a Fiber-Optic To The Home (FTTH)’.
OIL CEO Yugal Kishore Sharma said, “OIL has consistently strived to transform the lives of its customers by providing a seamless internet experience backed by a proactive & responsive customer care over ONE Wire using ONE Device for ONE Home aligned with our brand identity – ONE. OIL has had a stupendous 32x growth with its customer base crossing the half-a-million mark in the last 4 years of its operation with commensurate growth in revenues. From being a small player in the over 50+ ISPs about 4 years back to now moving into the top five Private wired ISPs, this is an achievement by any yardstick.”
OIL looks to leverage this huge opportunity where the usage of internet in these Covid2019 pandemic times has moved beyond browsing and social networking to work-from-home, on-line education, OTT entertainment & gaming, online-shopping, online-health, e-governance, others. Coping-up with the ever-increasing demand for the internet, OIL has adapted to this consumption surge by doubling its internet capacity on the supply side without passing the additional cost to its customers to maintain the customer experience that has led OIL to add at an average of about a thousand customers a day during the pandemic.
OIL plans to consolidate its operations and work on equitable partnerships with last-mile owners or LMOs. NXTDigital today connects 5.38 million video subscriber homes in 1500+ cities and towns of India through its digital cable television (CATV) and headend-in-the-sky (HITS) platforms, served by over 9,000 LMOs. The company is leveraging this huge synergy to upsell and bundle internet services to each of these video homes. Enabling these high potential growth markets with high-speed-internet and digital platform services with LMOs is the key to OIL’s go-to-market strategy.
It has successfully evolved its inorganic growth model by leveraging operational synergies with smaller ISP strategic partners. The organization will lead the on-demand economy wave by offering convergent solutions, such as internet, OTT and voice over one wire one device for one family.
Yugal Sharma also shared that, in 2019, OIL announced a strategic partnership with Facebook to provide Wi-Fi hotspots across Mumbai. OIL’s ‘ONE Express Wi-Fi by Facebook’ Hotspots extend an umbrella coverage across Dharavi in Mumbai, enabling consumers to access free 2GB data per day for first 30 days to serve its vision to lead contribution to lead contribution to the digital inclusion in India.
Broadband
Tejas Networks names Arnob Roy as MD and CEO, overhauls top leadership team
The Bengaluru-based telecom gear maker reshuffles its entire top team even as quarterly revenue collapses by 83 per cent
BENGALURU: Tejas Networks is changing the guard at the top, and doing so at speed. The Bengaluru-headquartered telecom equipment maker has elevated Arnob Roy as managing director and chief executive officer, effective April 15, 2026, for a term running through to August 3, 2028, and in the same breath announced new appointments across operations and finance. The timing is pointed: the company is navigating one of the roughest patches in its recent history.
Roy steps up from his role as executive director and chief operating officer, a position he has held since March 2019. He brings more than three decades of experience in the high-technology sector across research and development, operations, and sales. His predecessor, Anand Athreya, resigned last year citing personal reasons and was relieved on June 20, 2025, leaving a gap at the top that has now been formally filled.
The numbers Roy inherits are sobering. Tejas posted a net loss of Rs 211.3 crore in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026, a near-194 per cent widening year on year from Rs 71.8 crore in the same period a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter collapsed 82.6 per cent year on year to Rs 333 crore, down from Rs 1,907 crore. EBITDA swung to a loss of Rs 118.2 crore against a profit of Rs 121.5 crore a year ago. The culprit is not hard to identify: Tejas has derived the bulk of its revenue from BSNL’s fourth-generation network project, delivered as part of a Tata Consultancy Services-driven consortium, and that roll-out is now winding down.
Roy, speaking during a post-earnings conference call with analysts, was candid about where the company has been. “The BSNL 4G network went live across 100,000 sites. We deployed our largest indigenous router networks in the country through the BSNL MAN network, as well as in the BharatNet Phase 3 network,” he said, adding that Tejas had also successfully rolled out its 400G and 800G DWDM equipment in domestic and international markets, and continued the deployment of what it describes as the world’s largest satellite IoT network through its vehicle tracking system solution.
The pivot to new revenue streams is already under way. Tejas has partnered with Japan’s Rakuten Symphony and NEC Corporation to push deeper into international markets, with several Open Radio Access Network trials ongoing, one of which concluded recently. The company is also diversifying across equipment categories and geographies to sustain momentum as the BSNL chapter closes.
To prosecute that strategy, Roy needs a full team around him. Preetham Uthaiah has been appointed chief operating officer, moving up from his current role as vice president of product management for wireless products at Tejas Networks. Uthaiah brings nearly 30 years of global experience spanning engineering, product management, and business development across India and the United States. Before joining Tejas Networks, he served as executive vice president of product management, marketing, and strategy at Saankhya Labs, and held senior roles at Tech Mahindra on both sides of the Atlantic. He holds an MBA from Arizona State University and a degree in electronics and communications from Karnatak University.
On the finance front, AVS Prasad has been approved as chief financial officer, effective May 16, 2026, succeeding Sumit Dhingra, who has resigned. Prasad, currently serving as finance controller at Tejas Networks, brings over 27 years of experience within the Tata Group across telecom, aerostructures, and defence. A company secretary and cost and management accountant by training, he has spent more than 15 years in senior finance roles including CFO and financial controller positions, with expertise spanning corporate finance, treasury management, regulatory compliance, internal audit, and governance.
New chief executive, new chief operating officer, new chief financial officer — all installed in a single move, at a moment when the company’s largest revenue source is drying up and the next chapter remains unwritten. Tejas Networks has placed its bets. Now it has to deliver.
