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Bharti in talks with SingTel for under-sea cable

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, Aug. 2

BHARTI Enterprises is in talks with SingTel of Singapore for laying high-frequency under-sea fibre optic cable, linking Chennai with Singapore.

The sub-marine cable project, calling for an investment of $150-170 millions for the 35,000-km tetrabyte cable link, will create another high-bandwidth conduit that will be supplement the satellite-based international gateway, Bharti BT Internet establis hed last month to augment its foray into the internet service provider (ISP) business.

Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Enterprises, told presspersons on Wednesday that talks with SingTel are yet to finalise. But an announcement is expected in a weeks' time.

He said that Bharti, like in all its other ventures, will have a majority control.

Bharti is also expected to make an announcement on its joint venture for the domestic long distance telephony foray, also expected to roll out this fiscal. Mr. Mittal said that apart from the existing cellular and ISP partner, British Telecom, talks are also on with Vivendi of France. Vivendi, which earlier held the stake now owned by BT in Bharti Cellular, has again shown interest in the Indian telecom sector.

The company intends to roll out its basic telephony network in another four-to-five States (circles) - including Delhi and Haryana - apart from Madhya Pradesh where Bharti's services are already available.