Pacnet accelerates India expansion with national and international long distance licenses

Telecommunications provider, Pacnet , through its joint venture Pacific Internet India Pvt. Ltd. (Pacnet India), has obtained National Long Distance (NLD) and International Long Distance (ILD) licenses from the Department of Telecommunications of India. The licenses will provide businesses in India with broader access to Pacnet’s suite of advanced telecommunications solutions.

Pacnet India will expand its solutions to include International Private Line (IPL) and Ethernet International Private Line (EIPL) services, as well as domestic and international IP VPN services to meet the growing demand for robust, high bandwidth connectivity solutions across the country. Pacnet India, through its existing Internet Service Provider (ISP) license, already offers a full suite of Internet connectivity solutions, as well as a range of managed and hosted services to businesses.

Bill Barney, Chief Executive Officer for the telecommunications service provider explained, “We intend to expand our India operations aggressively this year and are already exploring adding more points of presence (PoPs) across the country in the coming months. We have also commenced upgrading our existing PoPs in India.”

Deepak Maira, Managing Director of Pacnet India and the SAARC region explained “With our enhanced reach and expanded suite of solutions, we will be able to provide businesses here with more diverse international network connectivity and introduce more cost-effective bandwidth solutions to the market.”

In December 2009 the telecommunications provider announced its plans to build West Asia Crossing (WAC), a new submarine cable network that will provide direct connectivity between India and Asia. WAC will have a design capacity of 6 to 8 Tbps, and is estimated to be ready for service in early in 2012.

“The licenses will also allow us to establish our international gateway in Chennai, which is an integral part of our strategy for India,” added Mr Barney. “This gateway will allow us to link India through WAC, to our pan-Asia cable system EAC-C2C, and on to the US through EAC Pacific, on a single Pacnet network.”

Pacnet India currently operates in six major cities across the country– Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Gurgaon.