Reliance Comm bags Deutsche Tele contract

Reliance Communications has bagged German telecom major Deutsche Telekom AG's bandwidth contract.

The Anil Ambani group company has pipped to post international telecom majors including Global Crossing (owned by SingTel) and Apollo (Cable & Wireless), apart from Indian major Videsh Sanchar Nigam.

Reliance Communications had bid for the deal through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Flag Telecom.

"The contract, for supplying of around 150-200 GB of bandwidth, has been awarded to Reliance Communications. This is one of the biggest contracts in the world and in volume terms and is much more than the total international bandwidth consumed in India," a source close to the deal said here today.

The size of the deal could not be ascertained, with the source stating that it could run into millions of dollars.

Reliance officials declined to comment on the issue.

Deutsche Telekom was planning to buy huge volumes of undersea bandwidth between US and Europe for its broadband businesses.

Flag Telecom is also close to signing up more deals in the global arena, the immediate one being a contract with Oman government-owned OmanTel. OmanTel was planning to buy huge bandwidth and the Reliance company is believed to have bid for it.

The company is laying a new cable - FALCON - that would terminate at OmanTel's landing station at Al Seeb near Muscat. OmanTel intends to buy bandwidth on this cable.

At present, Oman there are two submarine cables "" SEA-ME-WE 3 and SAFE "" landing in the country, while Oman is also planning to set up another sub-sea cable to meet its increasing broadband demand.