The six cellular operators, with a subscriber
base of over 6 million, had announced last month
their decision to break away from Bharti's national
long distance operations to align with Bharat
Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).
While the cell firms’ agreement with BSNL for
STD calls remains intact, they will also use VSNL's
national long distance network wherever feasible.
Though Bharti has played down the impact of the
shift in cellular long distance traffic, the latest
agreement with VSNL will further hit Bharti Telesonic's
bottomline. The company has already lost around
10 per cent of its revenues owing to the shift
in STD traffic.
The move has been initiated by MobileFirst, a
loose alliance between BPL Mobile, Escotel, RPG
Cellular and Spice Telecom. "In addition
to the alliance partners, VSNL will also carry
long distance traffic for Hutch and Idea who are
strategic partners in the MobileFirst alliance.
The 6-million strong MobileFirst subscriber base
with a contiguous pan-India footprint will now
have full access to the VSNL international long
distance network," a press statement said.
Commenting on the agreement, S K Gupta, managing
director, VSNL, said, "Through this agreement,
VSNL will now be amongst the preferred national
long distance carriers and the ‘First-in-route’
for all outgoing international long distance traffic
for the MobileFirst alliance. It will also significantly
add value to VSNL's growing market share of long
distance traffic."
VSNL is also in negotiations with BSNL to carry
its international long distance traffic from 40
million fixed line users.
Bharti officials said such movements were natural
in a market with three long distance operators.
They said some of the operators like Idea were
already routing their long distance traffic through
BSNL and VSNL.
However, they admitted that shifting of Hutch's
long distance traffic may have an adverse impact.
MobileFirst encompasses contiguous cellular circles,
with BPL Mobile in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and
Kerala, Escotel spanning Haryana, Kerala, western
Uttar Pradesh, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan
and Himachal Pradesh, RPG Cellular in Chennai,
and Spice Telecom in Punjab and Karnataka.
