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Tata Communications foraying into China
The
Economic Times— February 16, 2008
Tatas-owned VSNL, which has rebranded
itself as Tata Communications, is foraying into China.
So far, China had been the missing link to the company
which is offering global connectivity across all continents.
"We have formed a partnership in China for network
services. It's a commercial partnership, where two networks
get interconnected," senior vice-president of corporate
strategy Srinivasa Addepalli told ET. Mr Addepalli,
however, refused to name the Chinese partner.
"Following the deal, VSNL will be effectively
be able to provide connectivity to its clients in China.
Most large MNCs who have a global presence are there
in China. We can target these MNCs since we have China
in our portfolio," Mr Addepalli added.
Earlier this week, Tata Communications had announced
that it would be investing $2 billion over the next
three years to expand its businesses which include undersea
cable, broadband services, WiMax, internet protocol
services, multi-protocol label switching, ethernet and
managed services. "About $1 billion of this will
be for the undersea cable business," Mr Addepalli
said.
The company is currently undertaking the construction
on multiple undersea cables, which include TGN Intra-Asia
(Singapore-Hong Kong-Japan), TGN Eurasia (India-Europe)
and I-WEME (India-Western Europe-Middle East).
According to Mr Addepalli, the company has entered
into two major partnerships for its Eurasia cable. "The
Egypt to France link of this cable will be undertaken
by Telecom Egypt. This will also be connected to the
Seacomp cable thereby linking it to South Africa. We
(Tata Communications) will build the Indo-Egypt stretch.
This cable will be operational by the second half of
2009," he added.
The company's Intra-Asia cable is scheduled to be operational
later this year, while I-WE-ME, which is being built
by a consortium of 10 telecom operators, is likely to
be in service by 2009-end.
On the WiMax front, the company has already rolled
out operations in Bangalore and will next launch wireless
internet services in Delhi.
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