Reliance Info, China Tele in telecom deal

MUMBAI: India's largest CDMA mobile services provider, Reliance Infocomm, said on Monday it had signed a connectivity deal with China's top mainland fixed-line carrier China Telecom.

Reliance Infocomm said the agreement would lead to the first direct telecommunications connectivity between the two countries, which fought a brief border war in 1962. Calls between the two countries are now routed via the United States or Europe.

Reliance will route calls on the network of its FLAG Telecom unit, which operates under-sea cable lines. An interconnection between FLAG and China Telecom's domestic infrastructure has been set up in Hong Kong.

The Times of India newspaper said last week that call tariffs to China would fall by about 55 percent to 8 rupees per minute.

"This investment will enable India and China to effectively support the enormous increase in international communications traffic into, from and between our two countries," Leng Rongquan, vice president at China Telecom Group said in the statement.

India is the world's fastest-growing major mobile market, with 68 million users and nearly 3 million new users signing up every month.

Unlisted Reliance Infocomm is India's second-largest privately owned mobile phone operator, with more than 13 million customers, mostly operating on CDMA technology.