MUMBAI, July 15: The state-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) has decided to sign a memorandum of understanding for investing in Project Oxygen, a global optical fibre network. According to a company press statement, the VSNL board at its recently held meeting decided to sign the MoU subject to further government approvals.Project Oxygen is a gloabl network comprising of over 1,58,000 kilometres of optical fibre cable with 101 terminal points in 74 countries. It will be based on the ATM technology as against the existing fibre cables which offer only point to point connectivity.This project will be the first submarine network which has been designed from the start as a global network with capacity of up to 320 GHz available on every segment. The system is expected to be operational by 2000 with an ability to offer full commercial services by 2002."Participating in Project Oxygen will allow VSNL to obtain international transmission capacity at a significantly lower cost thus enabling it to reducecost of international networking. It will also enable us to upgrade our technology by adapting to ATM thereby providing higher reliability and efficiency in networking operations," said VSNL acting chairman and managing director Amitabh Kumar. According to the company, the decision to participate in Project Oxygen is part of its strategy to invest in infrastructural facilities on a continuous basis to gain long-term competitive advantage through lower cost of transmission.
