Bharti Telesonic Limited (Merged with Bharti Airtel Limited)

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Bharti Telesonic Limited (BTL) was a joint venture between Bharti Televentures (51%) and Singapore Telecom (49%). The company offered domestic long distance and international telephone services nationwide under the brand name IndiaOne. Bharti Telesonic was awarded a license for international long distance (ILD) telephony in March 2001, ending the state-run monopoly over long distance service. Bharti Telesonic had deposited US$5.2m for a license fee and the same amount for a bank guarantee. The company obtained the license for domestic long distance in November 2001 after paying US$21m and US$84.5 for a license fee and bank guarantee, respectively, for a total of roughly US$105m. Bharti Tele-Ventures decided to consolidate all the non-mobile licenses (fixed line, long distance and broadband businesses) under one entity. In September 2003, Bharti Telesonic Limited and Bharti Broadband Networks Limited merged with Bharti Telenet Limited. Post merger, Bharti Telenet was renamed Bharti Infotel Limited. Bharti Infotel operated fixed line operations in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Haryana, Delhi, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu as well as nationwide long distance and broadband networks. As of January 2002, the company had installed 12,000km of fiber optic cable network. BTL launched its state-of-the-art network operations centre (NOC) in Chennai in July of 2003. The new NOC is expected to control and monitor a 23,000-kilometre optic fibre cable national long distance (NLD) network across the country. Bharti Telesonic's activities in the international long distance arena are being developed by a second Bharti and SingTel joint venture project called "i2i" that utilizes both terrestrial and underwater cables. Bharti Telesonic launched its national long-distance telephony in December 2001 after investing approximately US$164 million out of a planned US$2.92 billion.