LIRNEasia » VSNL

India’s International bandwidth capacity grows 95 pc

Divakar Goswami — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 15:58:55 +0000

The Hindu Businessline, Thomas K Thomas, New Delhi , July 13Increasing usage of broadband and Internet-based services has prompted Indian international bandwidth providers to raise their capacity by 95 per cent over a one-year period.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, bandwidth owned by various gateway service providers such as VSNL, Reliance Communication and Bharti has gone up to 12.7 Giga bytes in March 2006 compared to 6.5 Giga bytes at the end of the previous financial year.

Explaining the growth, Mr Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom, said: “Bandwidth requirement is largely being driven by the IT industry, particularly the BPO sector, and also rapid Internet adoption at homes. In addition, it is being fuelled by requirements of a growing economy. Everything is moving towards data and companies that are not IT organisations but are purely into exports, also need to rely on electronic invoices rather than physical invoices, when trading with overseas firms. Moreover, exporters now have the option to send pictures of the sample product (item to be exported) to their overseas clients. Today’s bandwidth needs also revolve around International Trade. The cost of laying fibre has come down due to technology. There is a strong demand story from India.”

Broadband

The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) pointed out that the dial-up Internet users have grown by 24 per cent to touch 6.9 million users, however, the growth in broadband services is the real driver for the increase in international bandwidth.

“Broadband needs more capacity than a dial-up service. Broadband services have grown by over 600 per cent with 1.5 million subscribers compared to a few thousand in 2005. That apart usage of Internet services such as leased lines and Net telephony has also increased considerably,” the ISPAI said.

Internet Telephony has crossed a billion minutes during the fourth quarter of 2005-06 compared to 58 million minutes in the previous quarter.

All of the voice calls on the Internet are international calls. Adding to the bandwidth consumption is the leased line Internet services such as Virtual Private Services.

The number of leased line connections has increased to nearly 15,500 compared to 12,200 last year.

http://www.blonnet.com/2006/07/14/stories/2006071402630400.htm

LIRNEasia course filling up fast

Rohan Samarajiva — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 12:43:51 +0000

LIRNEasia, in association with LIRNE.NET, Nanyang Technological University and the InfoComm Development Authority of Singapore is offering an executive course in regulatory strategy in Singapore, Sept 25-30, 2005. This limited-enrollment course is 70 per cent subscribed at this time. Participants representing government, regulatory agencies, telecom operators, universities and civil society from 14 countries ranging from Moldova to the Philippines have already registered. The speakers are confirmed as are the arrangements to visit the InfoComm Development Authority. Just over a month to go, preparations are on course for an exceptional event.
Mr Satish Ranade, Secretary to the Board and Vice President (Legal) of VSNL, the Indian multinational operator that has been much in the news recently with its acquisition of Tyco and Teleglobe and its role in the South African Second Network Operator (SNO), will deliver the keynote address at the opening session. His topic is Effective regulation from the perspective of an Asian telecom multinational. Mr Leong Keng Thai, Deputy Chief Executive and Director General (Telecommunications), InfoComm Development Authority of Singapore will deliver his talk on Catalyzing change: Reflections on the evolution of IDA and IDA’s role in the ICT sector in Singapore at the awards ceremony on the penultimate day of the course, the 29th of September.
In addition to Professors Melody and Samarajiva who will be managing the course in addition to teaching, the faculty include Professor Jens Arnbak, Professor Ewan Sutherland, Mr Rajendra Singh, and Mr Andrew Haire. Professor Arnbak was the founding Chair of the Dutch Posts and Telecom Regulatory Authority from 1997, reverting to his professorial position at the Delft University of Technology only in mid 2005. He also chaired the European Regulators’ Group and the Independent Regulators’ Group, both of which played major roles in advancing Europe’s regulatory reforms. Professor Sutherland has been Executive Director of the International Telecom Users’ Group, INTUG, since 1999. Prior to that he taught at several UK universities, including a stint as a Dean at the University of Wales. Mr Singh serves as Advisor to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, with special responsibility for mobile networks. Mr Haire, who will be coordinating the program at the IDA, is Assistant Director General (Telecoms) at the InfoComm Development Authority of Singapore.
Registration is encouraged for the remaining seats. Course information is available here.

VSNL Buys Top VoIP Carrier

Divakar Goswami — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 03:27:53 +0000

VSNL Buys Top VoIP Carrier

India’s incumbent international operator, VSNL, announced today that it had agreed to buy Teleglobe, the largest international voice over IP (VoIP) carrier in the world — and former Canadian monopoly overseas voice carrier. Should the deal meet with shareholder approval and pass regulatory review, the merged company — which also includes the recently integrated Tyco Global Network — would become one of the largest multinational providers of voice, Internet, and bandwidth services.
VOICE
Teleglobe became the largest carrier in the 30 billion minute international VoIP market when it acquired ITXC in 2004. Although VoIP represented under 15 percent of the global call market in 2004, it is growing at double to triple the rate of the traditional public switched voice market. Combined with Teleglobe’s wholesale voice operations around the world, VSNL will become the fifth largest carrier of voice minutes in the world.
INTERNET
Although VSNL is a significant carrier of voice minutes in its own right, its international Internet infrastructure has been limited to a few routes out of India. With the acquisition of Teleglobe, VSNL will be adding backbone Internet connectivity to 14 new countries, bringing its total to 17. Still, the combined VSNL and Teleglobe international Internet backbone puts it only in the top 30 of global backbone providers. This may change rapidly if VSNL builds out its Internet infrastructure to serve India’s growing demand for corporate bandwidth.
BANDWIDTH
By purchasing Teleglobe, VSNL will be pairing Teleglobe, a major wholesale services provider, with the Tyco Global Network, a major provider of wholesale submarine and terrestrial network capacity that VSNL acquired recently. As of early 2005, Teleglobe owned or controlled part of 90 submarine and terrestrial network systems, as well as satellite connectivity around the world. Although other carriers, such as AT&T and MCI, may connect to more individual city locations, few companies are known to control capacity on as many different systems.

source: TeleGeography

http://www.telegeography.com/products/tg