Richard Li's Pacific Century Cyberworks, the Hong-Kong-based telecom and Internet access major, will dilute its stake in its Indian associate, Data Access, from the current 49 per cent to 24 per cent.

Siddharth Ray, managing director of Data Access, the international long-distance telephony and Internet access company, will buy out PCCW's stake at par. The exact size of the deal is not known.

Sources at Data Access said PCCW would offload its stake in favour of SPA Enterprises, its joint venture partner controlled by Ray. The final equity structure will be that SPA holds 76 per cent, and the balance PCCW. Siddhartha Ray, however, declined to comment on the issue.

Data Access is one of the first ISP licencees in India and launched its international long- distance services in July last year, ending the monopoly of Videsh Sanchar Nigam.

The company has about 11 satellite gateways and a total bandwidth of 650 million bytes per second. The network has capacity to handle up to two gigabytes per second of IP traffic.

It has interconnect agreements in place with over 84 companies around the world, and with Bharat Sanchar Nigham Ltd and Mahanagar Sanchar Nigam Ltd.

Besides ILD/ISD services, Data Access also provides Internet services under the brand NOW, an acronym for Network of the World, a brand owned by PCCW.

With 4 million minutes a day of ILD traffic, Data Access has already captured about 37 per cent of inbound ILD traffic in the country since its launch of ILD services in 2002.

Data Access has till now invested about Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.5 billion) in the Indian market, of which Rs 150 crore has been invested in ILD services.

The company also has an overseas presence with global clearing houses in the UK and US. In the US, Data Access is eyeing the Carribean and Latin American ILD telephony market.