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BSNL may route excess ISD traffic via Bharti

Thomas K Thomas

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd may initially route the excess international long distance traffic through Bharti Telesonic network.

BSNL and Bharti are expected to sign the interconnect agreement in the next few days according to which the PSU will route ISD calls through Bharti's network whenever there is a clogging of traffic on Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd's ILD gateways.

The move is an attempt to work around the Cabinet decision that directed BSNL to route all its ISD calls through VSNL as long it matches the lowest market price.

Sources in BSNL said, "One would have thought that VSNL being the incumbent would offer the best prices. But surprisingly they have not yet made any good offer to us. We may therefore initially route the overflow ISD traffic through Bharti."

While sources did not quantify the volume of such traffic, analysts say that the overflow in ISD calls may occur only from the metros.

Bharti is expected to launch its ILD services on May 1. It has announced a steep reduction of 40 per cent in ISD tariffs. However, the company still does not have interconnect agreements with BSNL, MTNL or the private basic operators accounting for over 35 million telephone lines in the country.

The biggest problem for Bharti however is to offer private basic operators a better revenue share than what they get from VSNL.

Currently, basic operators get a 45 per cent of the ISD calls from VSNL. Sources say that Bharti is offering only 25 per cent.

On the other hand cellular operators who currently get only 5 per cent of the revenues from ISD calls may not have much problem signing up with Bharti which is offering 20 per cent more revenues.

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