According to India’s Economic Times, Tata Group is seriously considering exiting the telecommunications business with the sale of not just Tata Teleservices but also Tata Communications. Vodafone seems to have the inside track, and the Verizon Wireless proceeds will certainly be more than enough to fund something like that.
And in fact Vodafone seems like a good fit for the assets, which would combine well with the Cable & Wireless business they purchased not so long ago. The submarine cable systems Tata has is the only complete set that spans the globe, and their IP transit backbone was #7 according to Renesys’s Bakers Dozen 2013 edition.
But is Vodafone the only possibility? Whereas its rival Reliance has had difficulty monetizing its international assets, Tata might find the going a bit easier. Other global carriers could also be interested. AT&T is probably looking for wireless more than bandwidth, but either of the Japanese telcos NTT Communications or Softbank (to combine with the Sprint wireline biz) could be interested, a bid by Level 3 could make sense, and I could make a case for Telstra too.
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Categories: Internet Backbones · Mergers and Acquisitions · Undersea cables
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