The online marketplace (www.band-x.com), provides a "secure, anonymous trading floor for buyers and sellers of bandwidth and related wholesale services." The exchange claims an international membership of over 10,000 people and includes most communications service providers worldwide.Since inception, its operations have broadened to include trading of switched minutes and routed Internet Protocol (IP).

Among other services offered, there is a dig co-ordination service, which enables companies constructing networks to display the route and timing of their trench digging. This, the company says, faciliates trench and duct sharing.

Then there is the Band-X Switched. This is an online trading floor where telecom wholesalers come to buy or sell `telecom minutes.' About 35 carriers are active on the trading floor currently. Here, carriers connect to headquarters in London and are able to trade anonymously with other interconnected carriers. Band-X acts as a clearing market and performs billing, settlements, arbitration and monitoring in this case.

Sale of point-to-point capacity is included. Here, international wholesale circuits and dark fibre is traded. Buyers and seller post their requirements anonymously and potential counterparties are matched by the markets.When a backbone is created, there are typically 48 to 96 fibres. Of this, only about two to four are "lit" up or used.

What remains unutilised is dark fibre and can technically be put up for trading.

The company currently has a turnover of $6.5 million and gross profit of $0.96 million. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter invested $40 million in second-round funding during the first week of April.

The advantage of an anonymous market place of the kind Band-X is creating is in terms of pure economics. Carriers can bring in short-term contracts and sell it at whatever price the market is willing to pay. In this market, all bandwidth is created equal and there is no brandname associated with it.

Therefore, at least theoretically, a company can undercut its own prices to sell excess capacity quickly. The idea is catching up quickly across the world on the back of incredible changes happening in telecom. On the one hand, there is a frightful amount of bandwidth being built all over and it does seem that over the next two odd years a glut is in the offing.

Then there is a shift in perceptions about pricing. Till recently, telecom carriers priced their services in terms of the amount of time taken up by a user. Current thinking though suggests that it may be an awfully lousy way. Instead, why not price services based on the bandwidth used up?

Interestingly, the exchange has one offer on sale to India from an anonymous seller. A 2048 kbps line from any city in Western Europe to any city in India. The offer price - $77,000 per month for a minimum contract period of 36 months. Any takers?