Pacnet succeeds in India where Telstra fails

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 02 February 2010 15:10

IT Industry - Strategy

Pacnet has announced plans to offer national and international long distance services in India after increasing its equity in an India joint venture and obtaining the requisite licences from the Indian Government - a strategy that Telstra appears to have been unsuccessful in pursuing.

Pacnet, through its joint venture Pacific Internet India Pvt Ltd (Pacnet India), announced today that it had obtained National Long Distance (NLD) and International Long Distance (ILD) licenses from the Department of Telecommunications of India and would expand its services to include international private line  and ethernet international private line services, as well as domestic and international IP VPN services."

"We intend to expand our India operations aggressively this year and are already exploring adding more points of presence (PoPs) across the country in the coming months. We have also commenced upgrading our existing PoPs in India," said CEO, Bill Barney.

Pacnet announced last March that it had received approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board of India (FIPB) to increase its shareholding in Pacific Internet India to 74 percent and to apply for ILD and NLD licenses in preparation for offering its full suite of network services in India.

As iTWire reported last week, Telstra has made very similar applications to the FIPB: to increase its stake in its Indian JV - Telstra Telecommunications Pvt Ltd based in Mumbai - to 74 percent and for the granting of ISP, NLD and ILD licences.

However Indian press reports say Telstra's application to increase its equity in the JV has been knocked back. iTWire has asked Telstra for comment on the status of both applications but Telstra has refused to provide any information.