Videsh Sanchar Nigam

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited
Image:Vsnl logo.jpg
Type of Company Public
Founded 1872
Headquarters Mumbai
Key people Subodh Bhargava (Chairman), N. Srinath (Executive Director)
Industry Telecommunication
Products International Voice, Enterprise Services and Consumer broadband,
Revenue US$780 million (2004)
Employees ???
Website www.vsnl.in

Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (NYSE: VSL, BSE: 500483 , NSE:VSNLEQ) was India's sole telecom carrier for international calls until 2002. While domestic calls are carried by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), and private companies, international calls were routed through VSNL. It also provided bandwidth for Internet service providers.

Contents

[edit] History

The VSNL headquarters in Mumbai
Enlarge
The VSNL headquarters in Mumbai

VSNL's roots date back to two telegraph companies, Eastern Telegraph Co. (ETC, founded 1872) and Indian RadioTelegraph Co. (IRT, founded 1927). The two merged in 1932 to form Indian Radio and Cable Communications Co. (IRCC). VSNL was incorporated on 1986-04-01 as a wholly owned government entity under the Indian Companies Act, 1956.

In 2002 the Indian Government privatized VSNL. The Tata Group group acquired a controlling stake in VSNL and the government holds a minority stake. The company offers its products and services under the brand name Tata Indicom in India. The company stock is now traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange and also trades in the United States as an American Depository Receipt (ADR) under the ticker symbol VSL. Revenues for the financial year 2004 stood at approximately US$780 million.

[edit] Operations

The company operates landing stations, undersea cables, ISP POPs, managed services, leased lines and datacenters across India. VSNL was the first company in India to start offering dial-up Internet access in 1995 and had about 3 million–4 million dial-up users at the beginning of 2005. Previously it also handled the allocation of bandwidth for other ISPs in India.

The company acquired Dishnet DSL, a successful broadband Internet service provider in India. VSNL has been active on the global bandwidth scene. It bought assets of Tyco Global Network for US$130 million on 2004-11-01. [1]

On 2005-07-25 acquired Bermuda-based Teleglobe International Holdings Ltd. (now called VSNL International Canada) for US$239 million. [2]

VSNL has since been chosen as 26% owner of the Second Network Operator to take on South Africa's fixed line monopoly, Telkom. With the new acquisitions VSNL became the third largest carrier of voice traffic worldwide behind AT&T and MCI.

VSNL International, the global operating division of VSNL, is based in Singapore.

VSNL provides Long distance services, dial-up ISP and ADSL broadband services for residential customers, and leased lines (IP and dedicated), wavelengths, managed hosting and global MPLS and MDNS services for business customers.

[edit] See also

[edit] References