(a) whether the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited have any plan to build their own infrastructure to carry their international call traffic;
(b) if so, the details thereof;
(c) whether the government proposes to lay undersea cable to Hong Kong and Singapore to carry their international call;
(d) if so, the details thereof; and
(e) the amount likely to be spent by the Government to use the cable of provate companies?
THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (DR. SHAKEEL AHMAD)
(a) Yes, Sir.
(b) MTNL intends to lay a submarine cable from India to South East Asia by forming a joint venture with BSNL. It has a proposed outlay of Rs.33 crores in 2005-06 for International Long Distance (ILD) operations in India.
(c) There is no plan to lay under sea Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) up to Hong Kong at present. However, there is a proposal to lay under sea optical fibre cable up to Singapore.
(d) The details of the proposal Indo-Singapore undersea OFC are as follows: -
i) Initial capacity - 20 Gbps ii)Ultimate capacity - 320 Gbps iii)Types of systems - Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) System with Repeaters iv)Number of fibres in Cable - 4 Fibres v) Approximate cost of Project - Rs. 1800 crores