The Hindu Business Line : BT gets nod for long distance telephony

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New Delhi Feb 21 Competition in the long distance telephony segment intensified with BT on Wednesday announcing that it has been granted international long distance (ILD) and national long distance (NLD) licences by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

The number of long distance operators in the country has increased ever since the Government reduced the entry fee from Rs 25 crore to Rs 2.5 crore. BT is the 11th ILD operator and 16th NLD service provider in the country. However most of the new operators, including BT, are not foraying into the retail voice telephony and are focused on providing managed data and voice services to the enterprise segment like BPOs, ITeS and multinational companies.

The ILD sector was earlier dominated by Tata-managed Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd while State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd had the monopoly in NLD services. BT until now was offering data services to more than 100 companies in India through a partnership with Bharti. The licences will enable the UK-based company's newly formed joint venture, BT Telecom India Pvt Ltd, to offer services directly to its customers in the Indian market.

Ties with Bharti

Mr C.S. Rao, Managing Director, BT said the partnership with Bharti would continue and the two companies would leverage on each other's strengths through infrastructure sharing.

Mr Andy Green, CEO, BT Global Services, said, "This allows BT to establish and manage our own operations in India. It's also great news for our multinational customers doing business in India and our Indian customers wanting to access a BT-managed network which is connected to BT's comprehensive global network across Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America."

Mr Rao said the company was expecting revenues of $250 million by 2009 from India.

BT is also increasing its Indian employee strength by hiring an additional 6,000 people within the next two years.

In February 2007, BT signed an agreement for the acquisition of i2i Enterprise Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based enterprise services company specialising in internet protocol (IP) communications services for major Indian and global multinational companies.

BT will have points of presence across seven cities, which will be increased to 11.

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