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At a time when a number of foreign telcos (Telecom Malaysia, Hutchison, Vodafone, and Maxis, for example) continue to show their increased interest in the Indian market, the Indian telcos are trying to make their presence felt outside India. Even though the Indian companies have still a long way to go before they can even think of making it big outside India (exception in the case of undersea cable network business where they are beginning to make their presence felt).What drives these companies to foreign lands when there is a billion people opportunity in India? Indian companies going abroad for new business opportunities is not a new phenomenon. From traditional brick and mortar companies like the Tata Group, Mahindra & Mahindra to IT services companies like Infosys, TCS, and Wipro, all are taking on the established giants in their home markets abroad. In telecom, this phenomenon, till some years back, was restricted to VSNL's presence in the international long distance telephony market, primarily catering to calls made to and from India. Its business model entirely depended on the Indian diaspora, and VSNL never looked beyond that from the time it started international long distance services.

India's Global Journey
The slow progress of Indian companies going global, can be attributed to India being a laggard in terms of the opening up of the telecom market. This resulted in delay of privatization. It was 1995 when the cellular sector was opened up. Most of the private players were busy rolling out networks within India. Going beyond India was the last thing on their mind.

Bharti was one of the first players to have seriously thought of doing something on the global scale when it entered into a JV with SingTel for the submarine cable company i2iCN, in 2000. This was also reflected in what Sunil Mittal, CMD, Bharti Group had then said: “With this initiative, we intend to put India on the world map. At par with those who provide large-bandwidth pipes and offer a world-class business communication network at a competitive price.”

Reliance Communication-the new name for Reliance Infocomm-which started its telecom services with a bang amidst the controversy surrounding WLL in 2002. In 2003, Reliance made its intention to go global by acquiring Flag Telecom. Ironically, the announcement of Flag's acquisition was made by Anil Ambani, the then vice chairman of RIL, the person who had made his dislike for Reliance's foray into the telecom business known. (He was conspicuous by his absence at the mega launch of Reliance Infocomm on December 28, 2002). It also operates its Reliance Indiacall services in the US, the UK, and Canada. Reliance failed to get the Egyptian mobile license, but hopes to get the mobile license for Sri Lanka.

Despite being the first player to have some international exposure, and its long-term relationship with international carriers, VSNL was a bit late in going global. A PSU acquiring a company outside was quite out of question. It was only after the Tatas acquired a 25% stake in VSNL in 2002, that Tatas got the leeway to venture into the international market. The moment came in November 2004 when the Tatas announced the acquisition of Tyco Global Network (TGN) for $130 mn. This was followed by the acquisition of the Canadian wholesale providers of voice, data, IP and mobile roaming services-Teleglobe-for $239 mn, in 2005, creating an entity which was to become one of the largest providers of bandwidth and voice services to global customers. It is the Teleglobe acquisition that gives Tatas an edge over Reliance's international foray. It may be recalled that Teleglobe had earlier acquired ITXC, which was the largest provider of VoIP wholesale services.