Internet gateway and service provider Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd and telecom service provider Asia Netcom has signed a strategic partnership, under which the latter will provide a landing station for VSNL's Tata Indicom Chennai-Singapore submarine cable in Singapore.
"The new partnership will offer our domestic corporate customers a cost-effective bandwidth solutions to Trans-Pacific routes and the US and Europe over Asia Netcom's EAC cable system," VSNL managing director S K Gupta told reporters in Mumbai on Thursday.
Further, Asia Netcom's co-location facility would interconnect with cable systems in Singapore, while Asia Netcom would also double up as a customer for the cable system, he said.
The deal would also result in increasing bandwidth flows to India he said, adding business process outsourcing and information technology-enabled services would benefit from the alliance.
VSNL would also be able to provide full-circuit to the US and Asia-Pacific regions, compared with its present status of providing half-circuits, which would enhance the company's revenues in the near to long-term basis, he said.
VSNL head (corporate) V S Sridhar said that the alliance would also enable the Tata-owned company to provide Managed Data Network Services over the cable system and the company would sell bandwidth to carriers, corporates and Internet service providers in the country.
Asia Netcom president and chief operating officer Bill Barney said that both the companies had earlier agreed to deliver International Private Line services to Indian businesses and carriers over EAC.
Describing the strategic alliance as a tie-up between an Indian and a Chinese firm, he said Asia Netcom would also provide additional trans-Pacific capacity for Indian companies over the Tyco Pacific Cable system, he said.
Tata Indicom Submarine Cable System, connecting Chennai and Singapore would be ready for commercial operations by the fourth quarter of 2004. The 3,175-km-long cable system would have an initial capacity of 320 gbps with the ability to scale up to its design capacity of 5.12 tpbs.
Asia Netcom is a subsidy of Chinese telecommunications major China Netcom and provides city-to-city connectivity and data communications solutions to Asian multi-national companies, ISPs and carriers.
