India's largest telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam's dependence on routing its international long distance traffic through private players like Reliance, Videsh Sanchar Nigam and Bharti will significantly reduce from July after it sets up its on internation long distance gateways in five major cities including the four metros.
"When we set up our own gateways in July this year, our dependence on Bharti, Reliance and VSNL will be much reduced. At present we use their infrastructure for routing call traffic to various global destinations depending upon their rates for those regions," A K Sinha, CMD, BSNL told PTI.
Sinha said BSNL's ILD services had already started and using own gateway would strengthen BSNL's position on this fiercely competitive segment and the PSU is also in talks with foreign carriers for direct collaborations.
BSNL had recently opened its bids for 11 ILD sectors. Till last year, VSNL was the preferred ILD carrier of BSNL. After that it was open to all private players who could carry the traffic globally depending upon the bids they put in.
BSNL's entry into ILD segment on its own infrastructure could change the current scenario all together with over four crore subscribers of landline.
If BSNL decided to lay an undersea cable connecting Port Blair to Singapore, then its ILD business will get a strong back-up from its own infrastructure.
Recently Sinha had said that the PSU was evaluating this plan.
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