TATA and BSNL enter Network Sharing deal (India)
Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL), India’s fastest-growing pan India telecom service provider, today announced the signing of a landmark ‘Master Services Agreement for Passive Infrastructure Sharing’ with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
Becoming the first Indian private telecom operator to enter into an agreement of this nature. The agreement which is valid for 15 years will be applicable to both Tata Teleservices Limited and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited in all of India’s 22 telecom Circles.
This is a moment of pride for us, as we have become the first private telecom operator to enter into such a strategically important agreement with BSNL, one that will allow us to expand our telecom footprint across the country much more quickly,†Mr Madhav Joshi, President, Legal and Regulatory Affairs, Tata Teleservices Limited, said.
The agreement comes at a very strategic time for Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited (TTML), as both companies have been aggressively expanding their network presence on the CDMA side with Tata Indicom, while also rolling out GSM services under the TATA DOCOMO brand name. In the short space of just three months, we have already rolled out our GSM services in nine Circles—Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh and Haryana,†Mr AG Rao, Chief Technology Officer, Tata Teleservices Limited, said. This agreement has the potential to not just speed up our network expansion and rollout process, but would also have a substantial impact in terms of reduced costs,†he added.
Under the terms of the agreement, TTSL and TTML will have access to thousands of BSNL towers all across the country.
One mobile user added every second
India’s mobile phone industry is expanding exponentially, adding one new subscriber every second to take the total telephone subscriber base to 250mn by 2007, Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran said here yesterday.”India’s telecommunications industry is on a very high growth trajectory. We have already crossed the 185mn subscribers mark, and by 2007 India will have 250mn phone subscribers,” the minister said at India Telecom 2006, inaugurated by President A P J Abdul Kalam at the Pragati Maidan fairground here.
“Our mobile subscriber base is increasing phenomenally each year, adding almost sixmn new subscribers a month, which means one customer is added every second,” Maran told the conference attended by the who’s who of Indian telecom.
The conference is being organised by Ministry for Communications and Information Technology, in association with Federation of Indian Chambers for Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association (TEMA).
Over 200 companies are participating in the exposition, including biggies like Bharti Airtel Limited, BSNL, C-Dot, Hutchison Essar Mobile Services Ltd, COAI, Qualcomm India Pvt Ltd and Reliance Communication Ltd
Among the international participants are various small and medium telecom companies from Canada, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy, Taiwan, South Korea and the US.
“By 2010, India will have more than 500mn mobile subscribers from the current base which is more than 140mn,” Maran said.
“This year we have already had investments of up to $17bn in IT and telecom, of which $1.5bn have been in telecom alone,” the minister said.
He said an investment of $2bn had been made in telecom manufacturing only. “And more investments are on the anvil.”
However, Maran expressed concern over slow growth of broadband connectivity and said that onemn more subscribers would be added to the current threemn by the end of this fiscal. IANS
