The Hindu Business Line : Cable landing stations to have open access

New Delhi June 6 The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is all set to announce a new regulation which will make it mandatory for Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, Bharti and Reliance to allow open access to their respective under sea cable landing stations to other international long distance operators and Internet service providers in a non-discriminatory and fair manner.

The regulation is expected to be announced on Thursday by the TRAI.

The telecom regulator is expected to ask the companies to offer access within a fixed time frame.

Reference Interconnect

Operators may be asked to publish the "Cable Landing Station - Reference Interconnect Offer" containing the terms and conditions, charges and time limit for providing access.

If any operator does not publish an RIO, then the TRAI may intervene with its own pricing scheme. The move is expected to enable lower international long distance tariffs. It will also benefit new entrants in the sector such as AT&T and BT to negotiate better commercial terms for landing rights.

Landing stations

Currently, there are six cable landing stations in the country of which four are controlled by the Tata-managed VSNL.

Bharti and Reliance have a landing station each in Chennai and Mumbai respectively. On the other hand, there are 11 ILD operators and more than 30 ISPs offering international bandwidth to Indian enterprise and IT-enabled services.

Earlier, in a consultation paper, the TRAI had said, "Control of international capacities, cable landing stations and associated facilities by only few operators can enable the owners to stall or delay entry of new operators. Proposed regulation would enable the timely provision of international bandwidth connectivity at cable landing stations in a fair, equitable, transparent and non discriminatory."

TRAI sources said that in the absence of a regulation, there is a scope for delay, in provisioning of access to the capacity acquired by the competing operators, from incumbent ILDO and others with significant market power (SMP) who own cable landing stations.