MTNL sees ILD nod in two months

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) expects to get international long-distance (ILD) operation licence from the department of telecommunications in one or two months, said chairman and managing director R S P Sinha.

He said work on laying under-sea cable between India-Singapore was on and the project should be ready by 2008.

"We have a national long-distance licence now, and expect to be awarded the international long-distance in one or two months," Sinha said in an interview.

MTNL subsidiary Millennium Telecom is laying the cable to connect India and Singapore in a joint venture with Bharat Sanchar Nigam.

Public sector Mahanagar Telephone Nigam currently operates in the two metropolitan cities of Delhi and Mumbai, while the other state-owned company, Bharat Sanchar Nigam. operates in the rest of the country.

Sinha said MTNL has formed an internal study group to estimate the worth of its real estate in Delhi and Mumbai and the report is expected in 2-3 months.

The company plans to use its surplus real estate for commercial purposes, including renting out for advertisement purposes and hosting IT systems for other companies.

According to industry estimates, MTNL has real estate worth Rs 30 billion in the two metropolitan cities.

Sinha said his company will launch Internet Protocol television services in a "a couple of weeks". Internet Protocol television services deliver content through technologies used for the World Wide Web. He said the services will first be launched in Delhi, followed by Mumbai.

On the firm's foray overseas, Sinha said, "We are willing to go abroad even in a joint venture with other domestic firms. The target will be under-developed markets."

MTNL currently runs mobile services in Nepal and Mauritius. Sinha said MTNL was still open to the idea of continuing to route calls using BSNL's infrastructure for its national long-distance operations to other centres.

MTNL, having got licence for national long-distance, is carrying Delhi-Mumbai traffic on its own network now.

For the routes currently using BSNL services, MTNL had issued a tender for which bids were received last week.

"We are still open to routing our national long-distance services through BSNL, provided it charges a competitive rate," Sinha said. However, MTNL is not "actively talking" to BSNL for the same, he added.

MTNL, which pays BSNL Rs 0.65 per minute for carrying its calls, wants to pay a lower rate. The bids received by the company have quoted Rs 0.40-0.50 for carrying MTNL's long-distance calls.

A panel is currently examining the bids and names of successful bidders are expected to be announced in soon.

"Both BSNL and MTNL have to survive. We will go purely by our commercial interests for that," Sinha said.