Three global telecom majors US-based Sprint International, Telecom Italia, and a far-eastern telecom carrier are understood to have requested the department of telecommunications (DoT) for a two-month extension to respond to the latters request inviting participation in a proposed regional hub joint venture with the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL).
The DoT letter, inviting proposals for participation in the proposed $500 million venture, had asked for responses by September 30. The letter was sent out mid-August. The telecom carriers turned in their request for an extension since they felt the six-week period was too short to respond to such a proposal. DoT officials refused to name the far-eastern telecom carrier.
Unconfirmed reports say Japans NTT (the erstwhile Nippon Telegraph & Telephone) has also asked for an extension. NTT, Hong Kong Telecom and Singapore Telecom are among the far-eastern telecom companies which were sent the DoT letter.
The DoT had sent the request letters to over 20 global majors. Other telecom carriers like the AT&T, British Telecom-MCI, Swedens Telia AB and Australian Telstra have not yet asked for extensions.
Meanwhile, the telecom carriers except for the US-based Sprint have not made up their minds whether to respond to the JV proposal on their own or as part of alliances. The AT&T has not decided whether it will bid on its own or as part of Unisource a non-equity alliance with Telia, Swiss PTT and Dutch PTT.
Partners in Concert the BT-MCI led global consortium like Telefonica Espania have also taken a decision, sources said. Sprint, on the other hand, is reportedly going to bid both on its own and as part of Global One, an alliance it has forged with Deutsche Telecom and France Telecom.
The letters have attracted a lot of interest among the carriers since the proposed JV will be best positioned to enter domestic long distance services when competition will finally be allowed in this lucrative business. Initially, the VSNL had proposed to set up the JV in participation with the BT-MCI, Marubeni and the IL&FS. This move, however, came in for criticism because the selection of the BT-MCI was not considered open and transparent enough.
At present, the regional hub proposal envisages carrying traffic from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Myanmar. The project, conceptualised with BT-MCI, was to link a trans-Eurasian fibre optic cable ending at Karachi to India at seven points with spurs to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and, possibly, Mauritius and Singapore.
This was seen as a backdoor entry into domestic long-distance services. Government officials felt that by setting up long-distance capacity at seven landing points in the country and, crucially, having a land-cable running between Jullundhur and Islamabad in Pakistan, the BT-VSNL would become a serious threat to DoT when the country would open domestic long-distance services to competition.
