DoT subverting TRAI proposals, allege bodies

The conference, which was addressed by various representatives of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), VSAT Service Providers Association (VSPA) and Indian Paging Services Association (IPSA) further said that DoT’s move to stifle competition and introduce open bidding for awarding licences for national long distance would only encourage back-door attempts to corner revenues.

"The process of bidding as advocated by DoT would lead to inflating costs," they said adding that the government’s attempt to exclude new entrants from intra-circle traffic and giving revenue sharing a go-by was against the philosophy of the new telecom policy.

Demanding a level playing field in the long distance market, the telecom associations said that Department of Telecom Services’ (DTS) domestic long distance operations should be financially and structurally separated to be an independent corporation and required to pay entry fee and percentage revenue share on par with other private players.

The associations also demanded that direct connectivity between existing access providers (cellular and fixed) across circle borders be allowed through their own links or leased lines. "Also with the availability of multiple NLD operators, fair, cost-based and non-discriminatory access charges need to be ensured for Cellular Mobile Service Provider (CMSP), to ensure full benefits to the consumer," they said.

The associations further demanded that NLD operators should be allowed to carry intra circle traffic and the domestic leg of international calls as originally recommended by TRAI and added that the consumers should be allowed to choose the service provider they want to opt for.

The delay in opening up the national long distance (NLD) telephony beyond the committed date of January 1, 2000 has already led to a loss of Rs 2,000 crore to the economy, they said.

According to TRAI’s revised recommendations, intra-circle traffic is not allowed. Further it says domestic portion of international calls not to be offered to NLDs. TRAI has agreed with DoT’s view that NLDs should not be permitted to offer bandwidth to end users. The revenue share will be bid with a minimum floor of seven per cent.

However, the initial TRAI’s recommendation has given the green signal for unlimited number of operators and intra circle traffic has been allowed. While domestic portion of international calls were to be offered to NLD, the initial recommendations had also allowed NLDs to offer bandwidth on lease to the end users.

“The need of the hour is to provide affordable service to the consumers. Eventually, artificial inflation of costs in the form of high license fees results in increased cost of services to the consumers,” they said.