Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd's Chennai-Singapore submarine cable project might encounter a speed-breaker, making it difficult to meet the 2004-end deadline, as the Indian Internet and gateway services major has yet to apply for regulatory approvals in Singapore.

The Tata company has yet to seek approvals from the regulatory bodies of Singapore - Infocomm Development Authority, Maritime Port Authority and Urban Development Authority - for setting up a cable landing station in that country, industry sources told PTI in Mumbai on Thursday.

Under the procedures, a cable operator would have to apply for landing rights and an operator's licence, which are mandatory to resell bandwidth to third parties in Singapore.

An application, if submitted "immediately" would take at least two months processing time.

VSNL sources, admitted that regulatory approvals are yet to be filed, and said they would be sought in "due course" of time adding that the company does not anticipate any delay in commissioning the under sea cable project.
IDA is the telecom regulatory authority of Singapore, while MPA has the jurisdiction over the technical and maritime safety aspects of cable landing.

VSNL had earlier announced the setting up of the Tata Indicom Chennai-Singapore Cable System, with an estimated cost of around $100 million.

The 3,100 kilometre-long fibre optic cable network, linking Chennai with Singapore, was slated to have an initial carrying capacity of 320 gigabytes of data per second.

On completion, the cable would carry around 5.12 terabytes of data per second, making it one of the fastest under sea cable networks in the world.

VSNL had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with US-based Tyco Communications for setting up the cable on a turnkey basis.