Press Releases
GAILTEL, RAILTEL and Power Grid join hands for Telecom business
New Delhi, 28th October 2005:GAILTEL, RAILTEL and Power Grid Corporation have inked pact for a strategic alliance to face competitive scenario in telecom business. A tripartite agreement has been signed today in presence of Shri Proshanto Banerjee, Chairman and Managing Director, GAIL (India) Limited; Shri R.P.Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd; Shri K.K.Bajpayee, Managing Director, RailTel Corporation of India Ltd.
The three government entities will be mutually benefiting through harnessing synergies in telecom sector and optimally utilizing their infrastructure on mutually agreed terms and conditions for maximum value addition to each organization. The integrated network of the 3 PSUs would be covering more than 60000 RKM (Route Kilo Meter) currently and would grow to 75,000 RKM in next 2-3 years with the completion of ongoing works. Currently the network covers about 340 District Headquarters out of 600 in the country. In terms of the number of Point of Presence (POPs), the combined network would have more than 2300 POPs. Infact already almost all mobile operators besides Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Other Service Providers (OSPs) are already our customers. Besides backbone Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) network of more than 60,000 KM the consortium would also have extensive intra-city OFC network in more than 60 important cities to provide end to end services to our customers. Together the consortium will have a network next only to incumbent BSNL.
GAILTEL has 13,000 Km network connecting 110 cities, Power Grid has 19,500 Km long network connecting about 60 major cities/ metros and RAILTEL has 27,500 Km long route connecting more than 2200 towns including Metros, mini metros and other important cities.
With the business inherently based on marginal cost economics, coupled with the synergizing of resources, the consortium shall be uniquely positioned to offer highly competitive prices. Having their fibers in highly secure Right of Use (ROU) primarily along pipelines, power transmission lines and railway lines, coupled with multiple layers of redundancy, the companies can offer unmatched in quality and reliability. With presence across the length and breadth of the country, the consortium aims to target the enterprise segment by providing Virtual Private Network (VPN), Broadband and Managed services. The Consortium shall provide a viable alternative to the Government for its e-Learning and e-Governance roll-out plans. In future the consortium can also think of entering into National Long Distance (NLD) and International Long Distance (ILD) services to leverage its strength. We believe that the consortium will not only benefit its customers by providing a variety of telecom services but also the entire nation by creating a high quality and highly robust telecom infrastructure in the country.
To achieve the objectives set out in the MoU of cooperation, a Joint Working Group shall be constituted which would study, plan and implement all activities and study, devise and recommend mechanism for utilization of the infrastructure and business models for division of revenues obtained and costs incurred.
GAILTEL is the telecom services arm of GAIL, the largest gas transmission and marketing company with over 5400 Km natural gas pipeline and over 1900 Km long exclusive LPG pipeline in the country Taking shape along GAIL’s 7000 Lm long pipeline infrastructure, GAILTEL is one of the largest bandwidth provider in the country with 13,000 Km route of fibre network.
POWERGRID, is one of the largest Transmission Utility in the world was incorporated in October, 1989 for establishment and operation of regional and national electrical power grids. It presently operates over 50,000 km of transmission lines.
RailTel Corporation of India Limited, a 100% subsidiary under Ministry of Railways, has been established on September 26, 2000 as a Public Sector Undertaking. Railways have built a large telecom infrastructure over years for meeting their own communication requirement for train operation and safety.