VSNL, Asia Netcom tie up for Internet connectivity
Thursday, 19 February 2004, 20:30 IST
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MUMBAI: Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (VSNL), India's leading overseas telecom services and Internet service provider, Thursday announced a pact with the Internet business arm of China's leading phone operator for bandwidth services. As part of the agreement, VSNL's proposed Internet cable connection between India and Singapore will land at Asia Netcom's cable landing station in Singapore. The cable system connecting Chennai and Singapore will be ready for service by the year-end and is likely to significantly enhance India's connectivity into the Asia-Pacific region and the US. Asia Netcom, wholly owned by Chinese telecommunications operator China Netcom, provides city-to-city Internet connectivity and data communications solutions to pan-Asian and multinational enterprises. "The new partnership will offer our domestic corporate customers cost-effective bandwidth solutions to Trans-Pacific routes and the US and Europe over Asia Netcom's cable system," said S.K. Gupta, managing director of VSNL. The deal will also result in increasing bandwidth flows to India, benefiting the business process outsourcing and IT Enabled Services sectors, Gupta told a press conference here. "The combination of the India-Singapore cable system and Asia Netcom's region-wide network offers one of the most powerful solutions for Indian businesses to connect to the rest of the world," said Bill Barney, president of Asia Netcom. "The eventual network architecture will not only offer unmatched network quality and performance but also eliminate expensive local loop connections that is typically necessary to link up two cable systems," he added. The new 3,175-km India-Singapore submarine cable system will have an initial capacity of 320 gigabytes per second with the ability to scale up to its capacity of 5.12 terabytes per second. With an estimated operating lifespan of 25 years, the new cable will connect Chennai to Singapore, from where onward extension to the US and other significant geographies is readily available at competitive prices, said a company statement.
Source: IANS
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