TRAI says no to BSNL on Bharti

new delhi: the stage is set for a battle between the telecom regulatory authority of india and state-owned bharat sanchar nigam over permitting bharti telesonic to share default national long-distance traffic. trai chairman m s verma on monday said the regulator did not plan to review its decision despite the monopoly carrier's threat to go to the appellate tribunal, the telecom dispute settlement appellate tribunal, against the former's decision. bsnl wants trai to either defer bharti telesonic's operations for a few months till it has sorted out inter-connection issues and has refused to agree to trai's interim order to share the default traffic on alternate days. it was now likely to challenge trai's decision in tdsat, official sources told times news network. bsnl has suggested that until issues like inter-connection, revenue-share and other technical matters like billing facility are in place, the introduction of bharti's services should be deferred. interestingly, this information was purportedly circulated among select mediapersons by another telecom giant which is seen as the biggest rival to bharti. the issue could not have come up at a worse time for bharti group. the initial public offer of bharti group's holding company bharti tele-ventures opened on monday. the controversy could hit sentiment of investors even though nld operations form a small part of the group's telecom offerings. according to verma, trai's decision is a temporary arrangement until the regulator has come out with detailed norms along with its norms for inter-connection between various service operators within 90 days. let them implement it and let things settle down until we arrive at a better solution, he said in response to a query. verma sought to play down the issue by saying that bsnl had only written a letter to it and trai would reply to it. please do not see too much into it, he said. we have not said the two carriers should be the default on alternate days. if there is a better route that can be found, we will look at it. but the consumers have to be given the choice of operators. we gave considerable thought and then arrived at this decision which is only interim. final order would be given along with inter-connect norms within 90 days. till then, the chargeable default minutes have to be shared by both carriers, explained verma. trai, which conducted its fourth and last 'open house' in the capital on monday on internet telephony, announced that it would come out with its recommendations for the segment by february-end. this sets to rest all speculation about the internet telephony deadline being extended. internet telephony is set to be thrown open to private players from april 1, 2002, which would mean far more cheaper options for making long-distance and international calls. verma said trai was would ensure that its recommendations were out in time so that the segment could be thrown open from april. our immediate goal is to look for a model that fits in well in indian milieu and address all the key issues we have raised in the consultation paper released last month, he added. the norms would include certain quality of service obligations for use of public internet for telephony, or internet telephony, verma indicated. trai would look at whether it would benefit boosting the telecom penetration in the country and could prescribe if any tariff re-balancing needed to be done in existing nld and international long-distance rates. though the actual costing has to be done by those desirous of entering the segment, we will look at the total cost of providing the telephony using internet to rural and low-end users, said verma. he also said that a level playing-field will have to be maintained while allowing net telephony.

TRAI says no to BSNL on Bharti

<img src=/photo.cms?msid=651583269 align=left>NEW DELHI: The stage is set for a battle between the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam over permitting Bharti Telesonic to share default national long-distance ...

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