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Indian phone row deepens, TRAI threatens action
Thursday, 16 January 2003, 20:30 IST
NEW DELHI: A row over an order to Indian private mobile firms to interconnect with limited radius private phone players deepened Thursday with the telecom market watchdog threatening legal action against erring companies.
The mobile services firms, however, maintain they would not comply with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) order to interconnect with fixed-line firms offering a cheaper limited radius mobile service on existing terms.
By refusing to interconnect, the private mobile operators are preventing users of Wireless in Local Loop (WiLL) private phone services from calling or receiving telephone calls from cellular phones.
Cellular industry sources say TRAI has issued notices to the defiant mobile industry players. If the companies fail to respond, the watchdog may invoke its powers to impose fines or cancel their operating licences.
"We will send our response within 72 hours. We are sticking to our decision despite all the pressure," said an official of a leading mobile phone operator in New Delhi.
"Our stand is clear. We are not against interconnection but we want a level playing field. We are asking for fair and commercially reciprocal terms," said the official who did not want to be identified by name.
The mobile firms say the TRAI directive asking them to interconnect with WiLL players was discriminatory and would hurt the interests of their over 10 million subscribers. The mobile companies, however, are connecting to the state-owned firms that provide WiLL services.
Interconnection agreements among telephone operators allow subscribers of one company to make or receive phone calls from other companies' network.
Mobile phone users currently pay 
1.20 as access charge, apart from the airtime fee, each time they make a call to a fixed-line phone or to a WiLL phone network.
But fixed-line and WiLL phone users calling a mobile phone do not have to pay any access charges. Cellular companies say the regulator should either ask WiLL firms to also pay a 1.20 access charge or exempt them from the fee.
The row over the interconnection comes close on the heels of the launch of WiLL operations by India's two biggest corporate entities - Reliance Industries and the salt-to-software maker Tata Group.
Both Reliance and Tata have announced sharply lower charges for their WiLL operations with a view to garner a larger slice of the country's ballooning mobile phone population.
WiLL is based on cheaper code division multiple access (CDMA) technology. Other cellular operators offering unlimited mobility work on the rival global system for mobile communications (GSM) platform.
Unlike cellular services on the GSM platform that can be used by customers when travelling, WiLL services on the CDMA platform are limited to a certain region, usually within the city area.
The cellular industry has been battling fixed-line phone firms over the introduction of cheaper limited radius mobile services for over two years, saying the WiLL operations were not based on "equitable" terms.
The WiLL players, however, argue as per the license agreement signed by all cellular operators it is mandatory for the latter to provide interconnectivity to all the other telecom companies for the smooth flow of traffic.
"The idea being that the end consumer should not suffer on account of any disputes between the various telecom companies," said the limited radius phone companies in an open letter published in all major dailies.
"The prices keep falling only when the competition comes in. However, in the light of WiLL calls costing less than cellular calls, everyone knows that cellular operators are only trying to save their own turf.
"So not only have they proved that they cannot stick to their word but they have also flouted the very agreements that they have signed," the letter added.
India, one of the fastest growing telecom markets globally, has seen a sharp decline in cellular airtime tariffs and mobile handset prices in the last couple of years as competition has soared with the entry of new players.
The Indian cellular market has for the last few years been the most dynamic segment of the telecom industry and amongst the fastest growing.
The country has about 10.5 million mobile phone users now and it is forecast to grow by a compounded 52.5 percent to 30.9 million subscribers through 2005.
Source: IANS
1.20 as access charge, apart from the airtime fee, each time they make a call to a fixed-line phone or to a WiLL phone network.
But fixed-line and WiLL phone users calling a mobile phone do not have to pay any access charges. Cellular companies say the regulator should either ask WiLL firms to also pay a 1.20 access charge or exempt them from the fee.
The row over the interconnection comes close on the heels of the launch of WiLL operations by India's two biggest corporate entities - Reliance Industries and the salt-to-software maker Tata Group.
Both Reliance and Tata have announced sharply lower charges for their WiLL operations with a view to garner a larger slice of the country's ballooning mobile phone population.
WiLL is based on cheaper code division multiple access (CDMA) technology. Other cellular operators offering unlimited mobility work on the rival global system for mobile communications (GSM) platform.
Unlike cellular services on the GSM platform that can be used by customers when travelling, WiLL services on the CDMA platform are limited to a certain region, usually within the city area.
The cellular industry has been battling fixed-line phone firms over the introduction of cheaper limited radius mobile services for over two years, saying the WiLL operations were not based on "equitable" terms.
The WiLL players, however, argue as per the license agreement signed by all cellular operators it is mandatory for the latter to provide interconnectivity to all the other telecom companies for the smooth flow of traffic.
"The idea being that the end consumer should not suffer on account of any disputes between the various telecom companies," said the limited radius phone companies in an open letter published in all major dailies.
"The prices keep falling only when the competition comes in. However, in the light of WiLL calls costing less than cellular calls, everyone knows that cellular operators are only trying to save their own turf.
"So not only have they proved that they cannot stick to their word but they have also flouted the very agreements that they have signed," the letter added.
India, one of the fastest growing telecom markets globally, has seen a sharp decline in cellular airtime tariffs and mobile handset prices in the last couple of years as competition has soared with the entry of new players.
The Indian cellular market has for the last few years been the most dynamic segment of the telecom industry and amongst the fastest growing.
The country has about 10.5 million mobile phone users now and it is forecast to grow by a compounded 52.5 percent to 30.9 million subscribers through 2005.
Source: IANS