BSNL inks roaming deal with Sri Lanka Telecom

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd's (BSNL) 5 million cellular subscribers can now roam to Sri Lanka.

The company on Friday signed a roaming agreement with Sri Lanka Telecom Ltd which will enable Cell One subscribers to roam in the Mobitel network of Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT).

The two companies have also signed agreements for communications services. These agreements include international direct dialing (IDD) service between BSNL and SLT that will facilitate direct connectivity for international voice traffic.

This will enable BSNL to provide attractive tariff packages to its customers. A memorandum of understanding was also signed for Internet Protocol (IP) oriented services. From now, both BSNL and SLT will be able to provide IP-based data services to corporate customers.

Speaking on the occasion, V P Sinha, chief managing director, BSNL said, "BSNL and SLT have come a long way after signing the first agreement in July, 2003. With the signing of agreements in these new areas , the co-operation will strengthen and people of both the countries will be benefited."

Shuhei Anan, CEO of SLT expressed that present agreement would have a long lasting effect on the relationship between India and Sri Lanka. He expressed the desire to lay a sub-marine cable between both the countries as a joint venture.

There were many other areas to be explored between both the organisations to get benefited and increase revenues , he added.

When contacted, BSNL officials, however, did not disclose the roaming revenue sharing pattern between the two companies.

This agreement will facilitate providing cheaper international long distance (ILD) services to the people of India and Sri Lanka. BSNL and SLT had earlier inked an agreement to restore a microwave link between both the countries.