BSNL extends ILD service, enters overseas telephony

Having commissioned its first international long distance (ILD) service to Sri Lanka, BSNL is now planning to offer ILD services to seven mo...

Having commissioned its first international long distance (ILD) service to Sri Lanka, BSNL is now planning to offer ILD services to seven more countries. The public telecom major has tied-up with two foreign telecom operators to extend its ILD services.

Addressing a press conference, AK Sinha, CMD, BSNL, said: “We have not yet announced it officially. However, it is true that we have already tied up with two operators to extend ILD services to seven more countries,” he said.

BSNL has entered into an agreement with Tele Globe Canada and Telecom Italia to provide ILD services to more countries. “With this tie-up, we will be able to offer ILD services to Italy, Canada, Kuwait, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and France,” Sinha said.

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Earlier, Dayanidhi Maran, the Union minister for communication and information technology, commissioned the direct link ILD services between India and Sri Lanka. With the commissioning of the link, the call charges between India and Sri Lanka have been reduced to Rs 12 per minute from Rs 18 per minute effective from October 31, 2004.

In October, 2003, BSNL entered into an agreement with the Sri Lanka Telecom Ltd (SLT) to establish a 34 MB (480 channels) digital microwave link between Rameswaram (in Tamil Nadu) and Thalaimannar (in Sri Lanka). The link which has 16 E1s (2 Mbps links) was engineered on Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) medium from Chennai to Ramnad and on OFC and digital microwave from Ramnad to Rameswaram and on digital microwave from thereon to Colombo.

Plans are on to upgrade the 480 channel system (34 MB) to 1,920 channel system (6 GHz).

Drops Net charges

		• Chennai: BSNL is slashing its integrated services digital network (ISN) service for corporates rental rates to Rs 1,750 from Rs 5,000. The rates would be effective from November 1, said AK Sinha. BSNL has further decided to reduce the internet access charges by 60 per cent. BSNL has cut the Interent access charges to Rs 9.60 per hour from Rs 24 per hour. In the non-peak hours and on Sundays, the charges would be Rs 4.80 per hour. —ENS

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