Bharti gets ILD phone service license

NEW DELHI: Bharti Telesonic, a subsidiary of Indian telecoms company Bharti

Tele-Ventures has signed a license agreement with the government to start

international long distance (ILD) phone services, a company statement said.

Bharti Telesonic, the first private Indian company to start national long

distance operations, received the license after it paid Rs 250 million ($5.13

million) to the government as entry fees and a bank guarantee of the same amount

on Thursday.

"Bharti Telesonic will be launching the ILD services in April 2002 under

the IndiaOne brand umbrella," the statement said, adding the company had

already installed, commissioned and tested two international gateways in Mumbai

and Chennai.

"IndiaOne has also entered into bilateral agreements with a number of

international carriers to put in place the network backbone for its

international long distance services." Bharti is one of five companies that

last month received preliminary approvals to start ILD services once the

monopoly of the recently-privatized Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. ends on April 1.

Last month, Reliance Communications, a unit of India's largest private

conglomerate, the Reliance Group, signed a license to operate ILD services.

Others holding the government's letters of intent include Internet service

provider Data Access and little known firms, Pacific Net Invest and Connecting

Networks.

Bharti Tele-Ventures, one of the main holding companies of New Delhi-based

private telecoms conglomerate Bharti Enterprises, runs seven mobile and three

fixed-line networks and has licenses to start eight more mobile and two more

fixed-line networks.

Shares of Bharti Tele-Ventures, in which Singapore Telecom and Warburg Pincus

hold minority states, were up 1.81 per cent at Rs 42.50 in early trade on the

Bombay exchange whose 30-share benchmark index was up 0.95 per cent.