VSNL, Bharti to team up for cable project

VSNL also gets nod to set up landing station in Egypt.

Internet and telephony major Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) has approached Bharti Airtel to partner with the company for construction of India-Europe link of the consortium cable, India-Middle East-Western Europe (I-ME-WE).

Separately, the Tata group company has also received approvals for setting up a landing station for the $350 million cable project in Egypt.

"VSNL and Bharti will work to lay the cable from India to Europe, a project estimated to be around $350 million. This would help in cost reduction, apart from ensuring that there is no duplication of assets and piling up of economically nonviable bandwidth," a source close to the development said.

The move would also help keep competition at bay, especially as other telecom majors like BSNL and Reliance also own submarine cables and are selling bandwidth in India.

However, this is not the first time both the telecom majors are part of a consortium cable. Bharti and VSNL are also members of the consortium cable SEA-ME-WE-4 that has two landing stations in India. The Sunil Bharti Mittal company has its own cable - i2i - connecting Singapore and Chennai.

A VSNL executive confirmed this and said that the company had approached Bharti and sought their interest in participating in VSNL's recently announced cable system.

"The company has been a strong proponent of sharing investment and infrastructure of cable systems", he said.

In a separate development, VSNL has received approvals for setting up a landing station in Egypt for I-ME-WE. The Tata group company has also received right of way (RoW) access permissions from the Egyptian government for laying of the cable.

The approvals would also enable the consortium members conduct both deep and shallow water surveys in the seas around Egypt for laying of the cable.

The consortium is looking at setting up the landing station either in Cairo, on the shores of Red Sea or Mediterranean Sea. This, however, could not be confirmed.

Setting up the landing station in Egypt would enable the consortium members resell bandwidth in the country, a source said.

Earlier, VSNL officials on behalf of I-ME-WE consortium had met National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) Executive President Amr Badawi and Minister of Communications and IT Tarek Kamel to seek approvals for the landing station and RoW.

The VSNL spokesperson said, "The I-ME-WE project is progressing according to plan. At this point, we are not in a position to provide details as to which all countries have given permission to set up landing stations.

Typically, in a consortium or partnership cable systems, each of the partners takes responsibility for permissions and licences in the respective country."

In October, VSNL had announced that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with leading international telecom service providers for constructing I-ME-WE.