The Hindu Business Line : BSNL, MTNL investing $400 m for undersea cables

New Delhi, Aug 13 Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd are jointly investing $400 million in rolling out submarine cable links from India to South-East Asia as well as West Asia. The cable is part of the two companies’ efforts to set up their own international long distance infrastructure.

“The eastern segment has been planned to Malaysia and/or Singapore with branches to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Thailand and Indonesia,” the Minister of State for Communications, Mr Shakeel Ahmed, said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

He said the western segment has been planned from India to United Arab Emirates and/or Saudi Arabia with branches to Pakistan, Oman, Iran, Qatar and Kuwait. The possibility of a land route to Singapore via Myanmar was also being explored. BSNL already has a cable linking India and Sri Lanka. At present BSNL is routing most of its international data and voice traffic through other operators’ network. Once the under sea cable systems are in place, the company could start its own ILD operations. Meanwhile the Communication Ministry is planning to hive off the company’s ILD segment into a separate company as BSNL Videsh.

Replying to another question in Parliament, the Minister said that BSNL will float a tender for procuring WiMax systems, a wireless technology for broadband services.

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