India Connection Comes to U.S.

Posted: 11/2003

India Connection Comes to U.S.

Like its European predecessors, Data Access America Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Data Access India Ltd., is bringing termination into its home country to the States. Since doing so in May, the carrier has cut termination rates to India by nearly 50 percent over previous lows.

Why come to the U.S.? Basically, its part of our strategy to expand globally, says Ashutosh Misra, president and CEO of Data Access America. USA/Canada accounts for 80 percent of Indias international long-distance market. So far, the customers have had to come to India to port their traffic. We are the first to put a switch outside of India and gone to the source; gone to the customer. That has improved tremendously the response time, quality and cost.

Misra says the company offers termination rates to India of about 13.5 cents, compared to market rates of about 27 cents one year ago. This drop only happened because we came into the market. They can cut term costs by more than 50 percent, he says.

Data Access Ltd., which carries 40 percent of all international long-distance traffic into the country, is the first South Asian carrier to launch international long-distance services in the United States. After obtaining a 214 carrier license in December 2002, the company deployed its New York switch facility in five months. U.S. headquarters are in Denver with an additional PoP in Los Angeles. The New York switching center has direct routes to about 200 countries across the world with about 100 carrier interconnects across nine network operating centers.

Termination to India is attractive because 90 percent of the international traffic there is inbound, says Misra, who explains India has at least 6 million expatriates in the Middle East and 2.5 million in the United States. On average, he says they spend $300 per month on long distance, which approaches a monthly salary for some professionals in India, explaining the lack of originating traffic.

Aside from India, the company in September launched of its non-India business signing more than 25 interconnect agreements with Tier 1 carriers, such as Teleglobe, as well as RBOCs and wholesale carriers, including iBasis and SwissFone.