After Bharti Airtel, DoT to issue Rs 100-crore notices to Vodafone

NEW DELHI: After levying a demand notice of Rs 650 crore on Bharti Airtel, the Department of Telecommunications ( DoT) is set to issue two notices totaling Rs 100 crore on Vodafone for allowing its subscribers a local dialing facility which helped them bypass roaming charges in two service areas between 2003 and 2005.

"It was emphasised that such type of service violates the national routing and numbering plan, and in an unauthorised fashion, bypasses the national long distance traffic. In spite of the DoT instructions on June 20, 2003, the company hadn't stopped the unauthorised service it was providing in the name of direct connect or optimal routing and continued to provide it till 2005. It was brought to the notice of DoT through a reference from the PMO in 2005," department of telecom has said, while deciding to impose the demand notice on the service provider.

According to the department's internal communication, the demand notice is being issued after it received a reply to its show-cause notice from Vodafone on July 13.

Bharti Airtel is the other operator guilty of violating the licence conditions by allowing the facility across 13 service areas, and was levied a penalty of Rs 650 crore.