Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Mar 06, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Mar 06, 2003 |
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Regulatory Bodies & Rulings Info-Tech - Telecommunications Multiple registration, SMS facility — TRAI clears line for Reliance, Tatas G. Rambabu
NEW DELHI, March 5 IN what will be a major setback to the private cellular operators, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has decided to grant permission to limited mobility service providers Reliance Infocomm and Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) to provide multiple registration and value-added-services including SMS to their subscribers. According to highly-placed TRAI officials, though the cellular operators have raised objections, a formal note of approval is to be issued by Friday since the licence conditions do not bar the WLL operators from offering these services. The cellular operators had written to the TRAI demanding that that the services of WLL operators should be restricted to "plain voice" with no "roaming". Subsequently, they filed a petition with the Telecom Dispute Settlement Tribunal (TDSAT) stating that although roaming is not allowed, Reliance was circumventing its licence condition by offering multiple registration to its subscribers. TTSL, on the other hand, has sought permission from the authority and is awaiting formal approval before putting the services on offer. "We looked at all the issues that were raised by the cellular operators. There is nothing in the licence conditions which says that limited mobility operators cannot offer messaging services or multiple registration," the TRAI officials said. "SMS is nothing but a data service, and the basic service licence stipulates that the operators can offer them. As regards multiple registration, so long as the subscriber is asked to pay separate registration charges and rentals in each circle, it is not possible to prevent the operator from proving this facility." They also said that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standards that have been adopted across the world, including India, clearly state that basic operators should be allowed data transfer facilities. Messaging services, text or multimedia, clearly fall under this category. The TRAI approval is expected to have a bearing on the case filed with TDSAT, which is due to come up for hearing on March 17. According to industry sources, this approval assumes greater significance since it could derail the deliberations of the telecom committee that has been set up by Union Communications Minister, Mr Arun Shourie, to thrash out the issues between cellular and limited mobility operators. The group has held three meetings to discuss the issue of multiple registration and SMS, but not much progress has been made so far. It is expected to meet again on March 13. Now, with the backing of the TRAI, Reliance and TTSL may harden their stand and refuse to water down their stated position on these contentious issues.
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