Mumbai: With over five submarine cables and eight landing stations in India, bandwidth pricing is the next "bubble" and will have the same plight of dotcoms that burst by mid-2000, according to France Telecom vice-president (Asia) Jean-Francois Thomas.

"The bandwidth prices in the country are expected to fall as broadband majors and telecom companies are expected to undercut each other, which apart from resulting in losses to the players will also create chaos," Thomas said in today (March 15, 2004).

Maintaining that it was "wise to avoid" the pricing issue by sticking to a business code of conduct, he said the prices were expected to "drastically" fall within a couple of months.

Analysts say the prices of STM-1s (a 155 MB circuit) had fallen to $ 2 million from $ 5 million a year ago, while that of DS3s (45 MB circuit) and E-1s (128 KBPS circuit) had slid by over 60 per cent.

This trend is likely to continue during this year, Thomas said.

With the proposed submarine cable network South-East-Asia Middle-East Western-Europe-4 (SEA-ME-WE-4) being lighted by 2005, India would have an abundant bandwidth supply by next year, he said.

SEA-ME-WE-4 is slated to have two landing stations, one in Mumbai, which would be set up by Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), and another in Chennai proposed to be set up by Bharti Tele-Ventures.