BSNL evading IUC charges through its LFMT service: Telcos

KOLKATA: Mobile phone companies have sought the regulator’s immediate intervention to direct state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) to stop its app-based limited fixed mobile telephony (LFMT) service, which they claim flouts licence norms, runs afoul of the national numbering plan and evades interconnect charges.

State-run BSNL’s app-based limited FMT service enables customers to literally convert their smartphones into cordless phones to make and receive cheaper landline calls from indoors, bypassing mobile networks and interconnection charges.

Customers opting for the service merely need to download an app on to their smartphones using a BSNL broadband connection.


“BSNL’s new app-based LMFT service is disguised as a landline service,and is in breach of the national numbering plan and licence conditions,” the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), said in letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

COAI represents India’s top three — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular among others. Newest 4G operator Reliance Jio Infocomm is also a member of the industry association but COAI said Jio held a divergent view.

COAI director general Rajan Mathews, in his letter to the sector regulator, said BSNL’s new limited fixed mobile service use caller-line identification (CLI) of landlines for making calls from mobiles, and in turn, evade interconnect charges.

This is since no termination charges are applicable for calls between landlines under Trai’s prevailing Interconnection Usage Charges (IUC) regulation. Mathews warned “other operators with a landline number series might also start using methodology.