Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd will launch its international long distance services from August 15 this year.

The company had invited bids from international carriers for implementation of the project on a build-operate-transfer basis, officials said.

As a part of its foray into the international telecom market, BSNL will also offer international leased line and Internet gateway services.

Though BSNL has set August 15 as the date for commencing its international long distance services, it will only offer incoming services and data services till February 2004, as it has an exclusivity agreement with Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd till then.

This follows a decision taken by the Cabinet at the time of divestment of VSNL that BSNL would route its outgoing international long distance calls through the company till then.

BSNL's decision to start its own international long distance services would mean that VSNL would lose out on traffic from BSNL's 40 million fixed-line subscribers.

Already companies like Bharti Telesonic and Data Access have taken a substantial part of the international long distance market.

BSNL's international long distance rollout will be in phases.

In the first phase, the company will set up 5 international gateways in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Ernakulam and Kolkata.

The international carrier will not only have to supply, maintain and commission all equipment to BSNL's gateways, it will also have to look after interconnection in other countries, billing systems and installing security related monitoring equipment.

The carrier will also have to assure some amount of incoming traffic and also give the traffic projection for next three years.