The license, approved by the Federal Communication Commission, enables Data Access to become the first tier-1 Indian telecom service provider to offer services in the developed American market.

This facility will allow Data Access America to directly interconnect with the fixed line and wireless service providers in North America. This license will also allow Data Access to become a national long-distance (NLD) player in the US market.

Says Data Access (India) founder and MD Siddhartha Ray: “We are pleased to commence our US operations. Data Access is entering into a highly competitive and mature market, which is of extreme significance. This is a first step towards expanding our presence to foreign shores and is in line with our strategic vision to evolve as a globally competitive telecom company.

“We intend to play a major role in carrying the global telecom traffic, which is worth 300 billion minutes a year and generate revenues in excess of $150 million out of our North America operations by managing 2 billion minutes of switched voice traffic during the year 2003.”

Incorporated in 2002, Data Access America is a full-fledged facility based carrier in the US. A switch center occupying 10,000 sq ft is being currently set up in New York. It will handle both TDM and IP traffic and will have the capacity to handle over 6 billion minutes of IP traffic a year. The facility will cater to the entire American continent including Caribbean countries, Latin America and Canada.

To facilitate the operations, Data Access America has already set up point-of-presence (PoP) in Denver, Jersey City and Los Angeles. It also plans to set up PoPs in Miami, San Fransisco and Washington, DC. The fully operational PoPs will facilitate Data Access’ plans to become a leading global telecom player.

The newly appointed president and CEO of Data Access America, Ashutosh Misra, expressed his views in a recorded statement: “Our vision is to build an extraordinarily strong and agile carrier business in the highly competitive US market with the support of our dedicated team and world-class network. We believe that with this development, we will be creating new growth opportunities in the telecom sector which will set new benchmarks in quality of service delivery.

“The New York switch centre is being connected to over 34 tier-1 carriers of North America, Canada, Mexico and Latin America in addition to being connected to the Data Access global network. This switch has the capability to pick up traffic from anywhere in the world and carrying the North American traffic to any destination in the world.”