IOC plans entry into telecom sector

Delhi based Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is planning to enter into telecom sector through

leasing its optical fibre cable networks to various telecom companies and Internet Service

Providers.






According to the IOC officials, US based telecom major JMS alongwith Telecommunications
Consultant India Ltd. (TCIL) has approached IOC for taking over the oil company's over

6,200 km long optical fibre line to provide Internet services.






IOC would be the third such Public Sector Undertaking after the Railways and Power-grid
Corporation to lease their communication network for telecom companies.






S.N. Jha - Director IOC has confirmed that they are in a dialogue with JMS-TCIL combine
for setting up a 50:50 joint venture company.






The officials said that in case IOC goes ahead with a JV with TCIL and JMS for the 520 km
long Haldia-Barauni optical fibre line, the estimated investment in the joint venture

would not exceed Rs. 200 crore.






As IOC has already been conferred the navratna status, there would be no need to get
clearance from the government as the estimated investment falls within the Rs.600 crore

limit.






IOC officials made it clear that the corporation would not be directly involved in
providing services and would only lease their lines while keeping the option of using the

optical fibre lines for their own internal operations.






IOC uses two types of bandwidths for its internal communication network - microwave and
ultra high frequency (used by major portion of the network).






Sources said that, the corporation is also planning to expand the capacity of the 1444-km
long Kandla-Bhatinda pipeline and with this the capacity of optical fibre lines would also

go up and it will also be laying optical fibre lines along its proposed Vadinar-Kandla and

Chennai-Trichy-Madurai pipelines.