Tribunal upholds limited mobility by basic players
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 2002 1:09:34 AM ]
EW DELHI: The Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal on Friday dismissed a petition by the Cellular Operators Association of India against a government decision allowing basic telecom service providers to offer limited mobile services on Wireless in Local Loop technology.
COAI is yet to decide whether to move the Supreme Court or not against the TDSAT verdict. The Association is meeting on Saturday to take a decision on the issue.
This decision will benefit basic telecom operators like MTNL, BSNL, Reliance Infocom, HFCL, Tata Teleservices, Hughes, and Shyam.
Reliance Infocom and Tata Teleservices have based their plans on the WLL services, while HFCL and Shyam plan to provide limited mobility extensively.
Bharti Tele-ventures, the largest basic telecom service provider in the country, has adopted a technology neutral approach. It will maintain its policy of not offering WLL-based mobile services in the five circles for which it has licences.
“We believe that WLL with limited mobility does not offer any value proposition to the customers,” said Sunil Mittal, Group Chairman of Bharti Enterprises. “We continuously track technology and are open to new developments,” said Mittal.
Cellular operators have opposed the TDSAT judgement saying that it will affect the investments in the cellular mobile sector. “Investors will lose confidence in the Indian market,” said T V Ramachandran, Director General, COAI.
Investments worth Rs 20,000 crore have already been made in the cellular sector, according to Ramachandran. This includes investments in fourth cellular licenses and networks.
However, the TDSAT does not agree with this. in its judgement, the three-bench TDSAT said, “There may be an erosion of profits of the petitioners, the cellular operators. But the petitioners have already been compensated in various ways..... The erosion may also take place by the entry of fourth cellular operator. As the NTP-99 now stands, there may be even more operators in the field.”
TDSAT is of the view that any new technology, which is in the interest of people can not be stopped.
“There can not be any legitimate expectation that no new technology will evolve and if any new technology comes, that will not be allowed to be adopted by any competitor of the petitioners. That will be illegitimate expectation.”
“In the spirit of today’s judgement and in order to get the maximum benefit of technology, the government should remove artificial barriers in the use of WLL.
The basic service operators should be permitted to provide full mobility,” said Rajiv Mehrotra, President, Association of Basic Telecom Operators.
Wireless in Local Loop service through basic telephones allows mobility on basic phone at a rate of Re 1.20 for a three-minute call and free incoming calls. |
