Telecom and Internet major Reliance Communications has moved the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), alleging that rival Bharti Airtel is not providing access to its Chennai submarine cable landing station.
The move gains importance as three sub-sea cable systems on the trans-Atlantic route were severed on December 19, and telecom companies were re-routing traffic through the trans-Pacific leg. Bharti Airtel lands two cables – consortium cable SEA-ME-WE-4 (SMW-4) and own cable i2i – at its landing station in Chennai.
In a letter to the telecom regulator today, RCom has stated that in order to improve availability of bandwidth to customers in India, it had also requested Bharti to grant immediate access to its Chennai cable landing station.
This was to access 2 STM-16 bandwidths on SEA-ME-WE-4 cable system. "We filed the requisite application and have also made the payment. We have requested Bharti to expedite the access to 2 STM-16 capacity on SMW-4, however, we have not got the access yet," the letter said.
An STM-16 is standard of bandwidth traffic over optical fibre cables. The international carriers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and the US have co-operated and completed the work, but for the one cross connect at Bharti, which is holding the capacity availability, it added.
When contacted, a Bharti Airtel spokesperson said: "There has been a fibre cut on SMW-4 and other major submarine cables near Palermo in Italy affecting the overall traffic between India and Europe. Bharti Airtel is taking all necessary steps for restoration of services and is currently routing traffic on alternative routes such as its i2i undersea cable. This cable is currently being used to meet our own requirement as well as the requirements of other impacted operators.
"We are working overtime to ensure the requests for additional bandwidths are addressed as soon as equipment to enhance capacity are available with us. We received request from Reliance Communications only yesterday and are trying our best to resolve their problem in the current situation as soon as possible.
Earlier in February, when there was a similar cable cut, RCom had moved the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) seeking intervention on grounds that other cable operators was not co-operating with it to provide an alternate route.