Australian ISPs may soon have a new connectivity option with Flag Telecom confirming to an Indian newspaper that it has signed a secret agreement with a global service provider to provide connectivity into Australia and South America.

Flag is owned by Indian conglomerate Reliance and has previously flagged plans to expand its Northern Hemisphere landing points.

But the new announcement massively expands its reach to two new continents.

Indian newspaper The Economic Times said “The company, however, refused to divulge the name of the operator, while confirming that the agreement was signed in London last week. The alliance will give Flag Telecom access to over 2,00,000 km of fully IP-enabled optic fibre of multiple undersea cable owners, long distance and access providers across six continents on routes where it does not have a presence.”

Industry observers contacted by CommsDay yesterday suggested that it was likely the mystery partner was American.

Said one: “a guess is Verizon although it could be AT&T.  Thinking of who has connectivity to South America and to Australia, Verizon is in Southern Cross, AT&T is in AJC.”

“On the other hand, it could be VSNL. The Australian bit would be via the proposed Pipe/VSNL cable. South America would be via any Teleglobe capacity. But Reliance and VSNL getting together – seems unlikely at this early stage of their development.”

Flag recently announced plans to build a US$1.5b “NGN” in four phases. The first covers: India, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Brunei, Hong Kong  The second covers: Kenya, Mozambique, Republic of South Africa, Tanzania, Madagascar, Mauritius. The third covers: Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Malta, Libya, Lebanon and the fourth covers: US West Coast, Japan, China and Hong Kong. It already operates extensive links between Asia and Europe.