MUMBAI: Bharti Telesonic, a subsidiary of Bharti Tele-ventures of the
unlisted telecoms group Bharti Enterprises, said on Thursday it has been awarded
India's first private national long distance (NLD) telephony license.
Bharti paid a fee of Rs one billion and submitted bank guarantees for Rs four
billion to the government for the license. It has already laid out over 10,000
km of fiber optic network covering 50 towns.
India threw open the NLD business, which was a monopoly of the government, to
private competition last year. State-run, monopoly overseas telecoms carrier
Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd and India's largest business conglomerate, the Reliance
Group, are the other firms which have applied for the NLD licenses.
VSNL has been promised free entry into the NLD business to compensate for the
loss of its monopoly on its mainstay overseas calls business next April ahead of
schedule.