By Neena Bhandari
Sydney, 5.11.2011 (Business Standard): Australia’s leading telecommunications and information services company, Telstra, has entered into a joint venture with Microland, a specialist information technology (IT) infrastructure services provider with operation hub in India, to provide international and national long distance telephone and internet services. Telstra International’s Director, global products and marketing, Nathan Bell, speaks to Neena Bhandari from Singapore about the company’s India plan. Edited excerpts:
Why did Telstra choose to enter the Indian market at this juncture?
Telstra has reintegrated the reach assets back into the Telstra International business and because of that we have now got significant cable and infrastructure in other countries. One of the countries where Telstra International actually didn’t have a full set of licenses was in India. There was an infrastructure part under reach in terms of being able to service our customers on an end-to-end basis. We therefore needed the International Long Distance (ILD), National Long Distance (NLD) and Internet Service Provider (ISP) licenses. So though it is a late venture of Telstra into India, it is actually part of our overall timeline that is progressing to the point that we have so that now that we’ve integrated the assets Now that we have have the license, the next step is deployment and setting up of our network.