Sify offers revenue opportunities for cyber cafes

CHENNAI - In order to arrest the closure of its franchisee-owned cyber cafes owing to increased costs, city-based internet services company Sify Technologies Saturday launched ‘Sify mylife’ that enables a cyber cafe owner to increase his revenue.

“The ‘Sify mylife’ platform enables a cyber cafe owner to increase his revenue — online and off-line. The cafe owner can earn by offering online services — ticket booking, payment of utility bills, education courses and other services offered by us,” chairman and managing director of the company, Raju Vegesna, told reporters here.

The cyber cafes can also earn by being a test centre for corporates holding online recruitment tests; providing wall space for advertisers by being part of Sify Ad Campaign programme.

“With increasing real estate and labour costs internet cafes cannot survive being just a browsing centre. There is a whole lot of revenue opportunities from online services,” added Natesh Mani, president (Consumer Infrastructure Business Access Media).

He said there are around 160,000 cyber cafes in India and 37 percent of India’s internet access happens from there.

For a cyber cafe to be part of ‘Sify mylife’ programme, it can either get a broadband connection from Sify Technologies or buy a modem like equipment costing Rs.9,999 from it.

“We source the equipment from China. It has one year warranty and Sify Technologies takes care of after sales service,” Mani told IANS.

According to him, Sify Technologies’ 1,200 cyber cafes and its retail broadband customers will automatically be part of ‘Sify mylife’.

“The discounts and commissions on services availed are available only for the cyber cafes and not for retail customers.

“We may roll out reward points for our retail broadband subscribers at a latter date,” Mani added.

Sify Technologies has around 100,000 retail broadband subscribers and the average revenue per user (ARPU) is around Rs.500.