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Our Bureau

New Delhi, Dec. 23 Even as Internet services continued to be disrupted in the country, Reliance Communications has written to the telecom regulator that other long distance telecom operators, especially Bharti Airtel, was not co-operating in giving access to its infrastructure.

The move follows disruption in Internet and international data services after three undersea cables got cut in the Mediterranean Sea. One of the cables- FLAG- is owned by Reliance.

“In order to improve the availability of bandwidth to customers in India, we had also requested Bharti to grant us immediate access to its Chennai Cabling Landing Station. We have filled the requisite application and have also made the payment to them. We have requested Bharti to expedite the process, however we have not yet got the access as yet,” said Reliance Communications in a letter to the telecom regulator.

RCom said that international carriers in other countries have cooperated but Bharti Airtel is holding up the available capacity. While Bharti Airtel and Tata Communication’s cable network was affected due to the cable cuts, they own capacity on alternative routes. For example, Bharti moved its customers to its i2i cable routed from Chennai to Singapore. However, RCom has only FLAG cable system, which has also developed a snag.

Responding to RCom’s letter to TRAI, Bharti Airtel spokesperson said: “We are taking all necessary steps for restoration of services and is currently routing traffic on alternative routes like its i2i undersea cable. This cable is currently being used to meet our own requirement as well as the requirements of other impacted operators.

“We are working overtime to ensure that the requests for additional bandwidths are addressed as soon as the equipment to enhance capacity are available with us. We received request from Reliance Communications only yesterday and are trying our best to resolving their problem in the current situation as soon as possible.”

This is the second time that RCom has approached the telecom regulator after one of its undersea cables got cut. Earlier this year, its FLAG cable had developed a major cut which disrupted Internet services in the region in a major way.

Even in that instance Reliance had sought the regulators intervention alleging Bharti Airtel and Tata Telecommunications were asking for a fee that was higher than the prevailing market price. TRAI had called for a joint industry meeting in a bid to get the operators to co-operate with each other.

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