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To: Drew Williams who wrote (1972)	8/12/2000 10:49:10 AM
From: Drew Williams	Respond to of 12246

India denies ISPs access to subsea cables totaltele.com --------------- India denies ISPs access to subsea cables By Aparna Achar 22 May 2000 The Indian government is refusing to allow newly licensed Internet service providers access to international submarine cable networks. Private ISPs say the government's action is denying them the opportunity to compete on a fair cost basis with state-owned ISPs such as Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (VSNL), India's former overseas carrier monopoly. Although the Indian government has permitted private ISPs to set up their own international gateways, which VSNL previously operated exclusively, it has denied them access to bandwidth from intercontinental fiber optic subsea cable projects such as FLAG Telecom or Sea-Me-We. Instead, ISPs are turning to foreign satellite systems operators and uplinking on both Ku-band and C-band, without having to go through VSNL, for connecting their gateways to overseas Internet backbones. But they consider this to be a less satisfactory option. "Submarine cables can offer higher bandwidth and are more reliable than satellites," said a spokesperson for the Internet Service Providers Association of India, (ISPAI), of New Delhi. "We should be allowed to negotiate with such projects directly instead of going through VSNL, which is also an ISP competing with us." In fact, ISPs almost had no alternative. Earlier, the government had insisted that private operators could buy bandwidth only from Indian satellites - the INSAT series - or Intelsat, in which VSNL has a stake. At present, VSNL is the dominant ISP in India, with more than 300,000 subscribers out of a total of 500,000 nationwide. Currently all international connectivity is through VSNL, which has a total capacity of around 300 megabits per second. Lack of adequate bandwidth has been a bone of contention ever since private ISPs went operational about 18 months ago. Also operators' dependency on state-owned Department of Telecom Services for last-mile access to the subscriber premises had convinced them that the DTS/VSNL combine was impeding market growth. Quicker Net access "With our own gateways and sufficient bandwidth we will be able to offer quicker Net access and consistent quality of service to our customers," said N. Arjun, chief executive at Mantra Online of New Delhi. Mantra is the service offering of Bharti BT Internet, one of the few countrywide ISPs. But the government has decided to retain VSNL's monopoly over access to submarine cables as the latter has an equity stake in the FLAG project and is also the marketing agent for selling FLAG bandwidth services in India. ISPs, however, feel that bandwidth costs would go up. A half-circuit international private leased circuit (IPLC) from VSNL currently costs 105 million rupees ($2.4 million) per annum. The government has also made it mandatory for these service providers to connect their routers above 2 Mbps to the monitoring facility of security agencies such as the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) so that these agencies can keep a 24-hour watch on the gateway. The cost of the monitoring equipment and services would have to be borne by the licensee. This would imply an additional cost of nearly Rs400,000 ($9,302) at every gateway node. The ISPAI said setting up a gateway costs between Rs100 million and Rs700 million, depending on the number of gateways planned. This would cover equipment such as dish antenna and satellite transponder fees as well as commercial property. Internet traffic only Although private companies can set up gateways and sell bandwidth to ISPs, they must ensure that the gateways carry only Internet traffic. Of the 30 ISPs that had applied to the DTS for an international gateway license, 17 of them, including Intechnet Ltd., Jain TV, Mahindra and Mahindra, Sigma Online, Dishnet DSL Ltd., Macronet, Satyam Infoway and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) have been given approval. Early this month, IntechNet Ltd., a Hyderabad-based company, became the first ISP to bring its international gateway into operation. Information : info@total.emap.com URL : totaltele.com

To: Drew Williams who wrote (1972)	8/14/2000 9:17:25 PM
From: JohnG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12246

Maurice--You let New Zeland go GPRS!!! JohnG By allNetDevices Staff August 14, 2000 Vodafone New Zealand says it will use Nokia General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) infrastructure for its wireless network. The company says it is aiming to roll out the GPRS service during the fourth quarter of this year. Nokia is locked in a pitched battle with other vendors such as Ericsson to provide GPRS core networks, which, in turn, can be upgraded to even faster third-generation service. Nokia claims it has delivered and implemented more than 40 GPRS core networks in Europe, USA, Asia and China and that it has the largest installed base of any supplier. Ericsson is claiming it leads in terms of market share.