Friday, 20. June 2008
DoT Rewards MTNL with ILD License
Public sector telecom service provider Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) recently received international long distance (ILD) license. The licence agreement in this regard was signed with the Department of Telecom (DoT).
This ILD license agreement could further bring down International Subscriber Dialling (ISD) rates as MTNL plans to carry its own traffic soon. MTNL is currently routing most of its ISD traffic through Tata Communications Ltd (formerly Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd).
Currently, ISD calls from mobile to the US, Europe, Gulf and Africa are charged between Rs 6.40 and 9.20 per minute, while the landline ISD calls are charged Rs 5.99 per minute to the US on an average. When MTNL carries its own ILD, its costs would come down to a great extent. The major players in the ISD segment such as the state run BSNL, Bharti, and Reliance, will now face more competition.
MTNL is also working on an undersea cable project to carry its own ISD traffic. The cable aims to connect India to Singapore andMalaysia and would be used primarily for carrying voice and data traffic from India to these countries. It would also enable telecom firms from these countries to carry their traffic to other nations.