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Andrew Bonwick
Vice President of Product Development at Relm Insurance
Madhav Sheth
CEO of Ai+ Smartphone
Stephen Rose
CEO Render Networks
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents India’s three-largest telecom companies, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular among others, has again approached the Trai seeking the latter’s immediate intervention to direct Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) to stop its app-based limited fixed mobile telephony (LFMT) service.
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The COAI claims that the LFMT service by the state-run telecom operator flouts licence norms and evades interconnect charges.
The body also said that the service also “runs afoul of the national numbering plan.”
Reliance Jio Infocomm, which is also a member of the industry association, held a divergent view on the matter, COAI said.
Rajan Mathews, the COAI director general said the state-run telco’s new limited fixed mobile service use the caller-line identification (CLI) of landlines for making calls from mobiles, and in turn, evade interconnect charges, as no termination charges are applicable for calls between landlines under Trai’s prevailing Interconnection Usage Charges (IUC) regulation.
He also said that other operators with a landline number series might also start using their methodology to skirting interconnect charges, which would lead to major revenue implications for mobile operators.
“Existing interconnection agreements between COAI’s member operators and BSNL do not permit such calls, and does not permit internet telephony services either,” Mathews said.
“BSNL’s Limited Fixed Mobile Telephony Service is a restricted but in-principle same version of their Fixed Mobile Telephony (FMT) service, even though they are marketing it as a distinct service,” Mathews said in a letter to to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), explaining its understanding of the issue.
