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However Telstra Telecommunications, in a separate application lodged with the FIPB on 19 November 2009, had applied to "provide a whole range of telecommunications services using the ISP, NLD [National Long Distance] and ILD [International Long Distance] licenses to multinational enterprise customers.
iTWire has been unable to determine the status of this application. However the application to increase Telstra's equity to 74 percent was deferred at an FIPB meeting in December and reconsidered on 18 January, documents on the FIPB website show.
According to a subsequent report in the Economic Times "The foreign investment regulator ruled that the deal would result in a breach of foreign direct investment limit, as the foreign holding in the Indian company would be 61.9 percent if indirect stake in the Indian partner is taken into account.
This seems odd as several global carriers: have in recent years followed very similar paths of increasing their stake in an Indian JV to 74 percent and moving into the provision of telecoms services to multinationals.
In March 2009, Pacnet CEO, Bill Barney announced that: "As part of our strategy to aggressively grow our operations in India, we have raised our stake in our India joint venture, Pacific Internet India Pvt Ltd from 55 percent to 74 percent...to support our network roll out in India post receipt of ILD and NLD licenses."
In October 2008, Verizon Business announced an expansion of its presence in India through Verizon Business India, which it said was the trading name of a joint venture between it and the Videocon Group of Mumbai. Verizon Business held a 74 percent stake.
Prior to this both BT and AT&T had announced very similar initiatives putting their equity in the Indian TV at 74 percent.
