Telecom services provider Telstra International on Tuesday said its Indian joint venture has got three telecom licences to offer national long distance, international long distance and Internet services, and expects to start operations by March 2012.

"We got ILD, NLD and ISP licence in October. Now we are working on set-up infrastructure for rolling out services. We expect to start our operation in the first quarter of 2012," Nathan Bell, Director- Products and Marketing, Telstra International told reporters here.

The Department of Telecommunications awarded three licences viz, international long distance (ILD), national long distance (NLD) and Internet Service Provider licence to Telstra Telecommunications on October 11.

Telstra International holds 74 per cent stake in Telstra Telecommunications. The rest is with Indian firm Microland.

The company is part of 20 international under-sea optical fibre cable consortium which facilitate Internet connectivity across globe.

Telstra will have its cable landing stations at Chennai and Mumbai where it will built international gateways. From these two nodes, Telstra will build its network in the country.

"We will start our operation in Bangalore, Calcutta, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune. The customer support centre will be located in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai," Anish Kohli , Director- Telstra Telecommunications said.

Bell said that Telstra will look to invest in more of the global cable network which will connect to India. However, Bell did not disclose the investment that company has earmarked for its India business expansion and structure of team it plans to build in the country.