VSNL refutes U.S. charges

By agencies   |   Thursday, 04 August 2005, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) has refuted allegations of high international bandwidth pricing made by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) saying that the data submitted by the U.S. agency were incorrect. In a communication to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), VSNL said that it was not appropriate for any foreign governmental agency to interfere with the lawful working in another country. The USTR had earlier written to TRAI seeking its intervention on alleged monopolistic practices by VSNL. With the acquisition of Tyco Global Network and Teleglobe’s cable network, VSNL is the third largest undersea cable operator and ythis has raised some security concerns in the U.S. Responding to USTR’s allegations, VSNL said, “The underlying data were incomplete and flawed, in part because they were based upon list rather than transaction based prices and did not take into account the relevant cost differences.” VSNL said it only controls 51 percent of international bandwidth capacity in india, and only 8 percent of capacity on Reliance owned Flag Europe Asia (FEA) cable systems. The letter states, “VSNL disagrees with USTR’s assertion that end-to-end bandwidth pricing is above market levels on the India-U.S. route. USTR refers to a single submission to FCC in which small U.S. operators complained that prices were too high. No other U.S. operator voiced a similar complaint, and the FCC did not express any opinion on the validity of this allegation.”