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DoT proposes infrastructure sharing

Submitted by Karthik on 30 November, 2005 - 13:16

In a bid to avoid duplication of common infrastructure thereby promoting growth in the sector, the DoT has proposed that independent infrastructure providers be allowed to set up base in the country and lease their networks to all operators.

This practice is common in the international market, where a large number of optic fibre cable (OFC) operators and international long-distance submarine cable operators lease their infrastructure to consortiums of telecom operators.

This also paves the way for PSU OFC's like GAIL, Railtel and PowerGrid to lease their networks to any operator. It may also lead to new players enter the sector and offer services in specific telecom segments without having to set up the network.

However, the IT minister - Dayanidhi Maran - has immediately quashed the move.

Links: Business Standard, The Hindu.
Related link: Alliance forms India's second largest bandwidth network.