Calcutta, April 7 :     The exit of Telstra International of Australia from Modi Telstra, the city's cellular operator, hinges on the company's ability to sew up a long-term loan of Rs 67 crore. These loans are currently being negotiated with banks in India keeping Telstra firmly in the picture till such time 'as the financial deal is sealed', top officials in the company said. Modi Corp and its associates have time till the end of May to pay up Telstra after which the multinational will be free to find another buyer. If the payment is made, the cellular operator will be able to use the Telstra brand name for specific period of time. Modi Telstra needs the funds to start its operations for wireless application protocol (WAP), which is designed to take the mobile phone to the next stage where subscribers will be able to access the internet. A part of the cash will also be used to meet working capital needs. A sum of Rs 40 crore has been earmarked as capital investment into acquiring an intelligent network (IN) platform and WAP technology, acquiring 35 more base stations and expanding the switching capacity to help the company double its customer base from its present level of 50,000. Modi Telstra's total investment till now is about Rs 200 crore of which Rs 133 crore is by way of equity capital. Since the January 21 expression of intent for the acquisition of the 49 per cent stake by Modi Corp and associates, there has been one new addition to this group - Prudential of the UK - which bought over 15 per cent of Spice Telecom's equity in Bangalore. Of this 15 per cent, a little over 10 per cent was bought from Motorola. The other associates continue to be Distacom and AIG Asian Infrastructure Fund. Modi Telstra has yet to firm up plans for long distance telephony Company officials believe that it is too small a player to visualise even a separate corridor kind of arrangement with players in other cities - like the one being conceived by Command, the other cellular operator. Modi Telstra reckons that such a plan cannot really work given the larger dynamics of huge licence fees involved. The only regional alliance it can have is with Reliance Telecom which has the licence for Bengal (excluding Calcutta). If the company officials are talking to the telecom industry's dark horse, they are not telling. It however remains true that any national alliance in domestic long distance telephony can hardly exclude Modi Telstra. The reason is that it has a 60 per cent market share in Calcutta.