| "Such steps are necessary if we have to maintain our leadership in business process outsourcing activities," Maran said at the integration ceremony of Tata-managed Videsh sanchar Nigam Ltd with Tyco Global Network (TGN), which it had acquired last year. |
| VSNL had challenged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) order for a cut in international bandwidth prices and moved the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal recently. |
| A few months ago, Maran had also advised cellular operators to reduce roaming charges and they had complied with the minister's wish. |
| Maran blamed lack of competition for bandwidth prices remaining high in India, though tariff was going down globally. |
| "There are 33 international bandwidth operators in the UK, 14 in Korea, whereas there are only three in India," he said. |
| Recently, Reliance Infocomm had accused VSNL of obstructing 'effective competition' in the international bandwidth market. In a letter to Trai, Reliance had also said the presence of only three players in the international bandwidth business, despite its opening up in 2002, indicated the non-competitive practices of VSNL. The US government had also complained of VSNL's monopoly. |
| Maran said the government was taking steps to integrate the four landing stations into one. "We have enough fibre connectivity across the country. Therefore, we don't need to have four landing stations," he said. Reliance had also asked Trai to instruct VSNL to share the landing right infrastructure on a non-discriminatory basis. |
| Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Group, the majority shareholder in VSNL, however, said, the whole network would be available for public use and there would be no 'monopolisation'. |
| TGN, which VSNL had acquired last year for $130 million, will give itself access to a 60,000-km fibre optic network across three continents, 12 countries with 35 points of presence, connecting all major business capitals in Asia, Europe and North America. |
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