Mumbai, Oct 11 :    Mumbai, Oct 11:  The list of possible entrants in the national long distance telephony (NLD) sector seems to be getting longer, with C. Sivasankaran, of Sterling Cellular fame, believed to be considering a foray into the sector. While developments in this regard are said to be in preliminary stages with Sivasankaran learnt to be scouting for a collaborator, reliable industry and financial institution circles told The Telegraph that he may enter into a tieup with Chanrai of Singapore which also has interests in telecom. This however, could not confirmed with Sivasankaran. Industry sources said that Sivasankaran's plans of a foray in long distance telephony comes after his earlier plan to offer local call dialling across the country. They added that his experience in handling cellular operations in Tamil Nadu is likely to come handy for the venture. Sivasankaran currently owns Srinivas Cellcom, the cellular operator in Tamil Nadu. Besides, he had also evinced interest in acquiring a stake in Chennai cellular services operator Skycell Communications, through which it expected to cover the entire state. Incidentally, Srinivas Cellcom is said to be one of the few cellular operators that owed no dues to the government and was the first to migrate to the revenue-sharing system from a licence fee regime. After the Union government announced its intentions of opening up the NLD sector to local competition, telecom majors like Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, the BPL group, the Mittals of the Bharti group and the Power Grid Corporation have so far evinced serious interest in this sector. Further, the Reliance group is also contemplating an investment of over Rs 15,000 crore in the infocom business. FI circles state that due to the tough government regulations which prescribe a minimum networth of Rs 1,000 crore, only corporates with deep pockets are likely to enter this sector. Sivasankaran had earlier announced strengthening of his infocom initiatives which included Dishnet, the internet service provider and ETH Ltd (Education-to-Home), which was to provide syllabus-based education on a TV channel. While both of these initiatives necessitated an investment of Rs 2,000 crore, for his cellular services venture in Tamil Nadu, he planned to focus on acquiring other cellular circles. Last year, the Essar group had picked up a 20 per cent stake in Sterling Computers Ltd (SCL), following its acquisition of the entire equity of three unlisted private investment companies owned by Sivasankaran. SCL then held 51 per cent in Sterling Cellular, the cellular licencee for Delhi, which in turn held 80 per cent of Aircell Digilink, the licencee for UP (East), Haryana and Rajasthan.