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Mumbai: Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India (TRAI) has approved the reference interconnect offer (RIO)
of the three undersea cable owners - Reliance, Bharti and VSNL - which would act
as a access guidance between cable landing station owners and prospective users. This
would pave the way for long distance operators and internet service providers
to access the trios'' cable landing systems at competitive rates. The
three undersea cable station owners were asked by TRAI to submit the cable landing
station - reference interconnect offer, containing the terms and conditions, charges
and time limit for providing access. A
senior TRAI official said in the absence of a regulation, there is a scope for
non-provisioning of access by these players to the bandwidth users like ISPs,
ILDOs and other corporate users while adding the reference RIO. TRAI
has approved the RIO of four cable landing stations of VSNL, and one each of Bharti
and Reliance Communications. Currently,
there are six cable landing stations, of which four are controlled by the Tata-managed
VSNL. Bharti and Reliance have a landing station each in Chennai and Mumbai respectively.
VSNL International,
a wholly owned subsidiary of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL), operates the
submarine cable systems and provides access to critical infrastructure and onward
connectivity from the planned Guam landing station. Reliance
Communication''s FLAG operates the Europe cable, Flag Atlantic, which connects
Europe and the US and FLAG North Asia. Bharti
and Reliance have a landing station each in Chennai and Mumbai respectively.
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