In six weeks time, India is set to get connected with none other than BT. The telecom giant has been granted international long distance (ILD) and national long distance (NLD) licences by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) here in the country.

Following the development, it has been decided that BT’s newly-formed joint venture company , BT Telecom India, would offer services for the first time directly to multi-site corporate customers in the Indian market, a report in a financial daily said.

It is learnt that corporate customers stand to get virtual private network-based (VPN) services using technologies such as internet protocol-based multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) and ATMs. The development is also seen as a boon to BT’s multinational customers doing business in India and our Indian customers wanting to access a BT-managed network which is connected to BT's comprehensive global network across Asia Pacific, Europe and North America.

With the licenses being granted by the government, BT is expected to start services within the next six weeks. BT officials have said that the telecom major’s focus will be multinational software and BPO houses, banks and financial services that have multi-sites and Indian companies that have global operations`.