The Hindu Business Line : Anil Ambani calls on TRAI chief

THE Reliance Infocomm chief, Mr Anil Ambani, on Thursday, met Mr Pradip Baijal Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), to discuss a number of issues including that of interconnection and the controversy over landing rights for FLAG submarine cable systems.

This was the first time that Mr Ambani was meeting the TRAI Chairman after taking charge of Reliance's telecom business post the settlement of ownership of Reliance Group companies with elder brother Mr Mukesh Ambani.

Industry sources said that during the discussion, Mr Ambani raised the issue of VSNL's monopoly over the landing rights in Mumbai. Reliance Infocomm and the Tata-managed VSNL have been involved in a dual over the issue ever since the former bought the FLAG undersea cable system. Without proper access to landing stations in the country Reliance has claimed that it was being put through anti-competitive practices by VSNL.

A number of US based trade associations have also written to the TRAI supporting Reliance's claims. VSNL has denied the allegations. Trai is in the process of finalising its policy on international bandwidth including rights to landing stations.

At a recently held open house discussion, Reliance Infocomm had charged VSNL with denying access to cable landing stations and keeping the tariffs artificially high. VSNL countered the allegation saying it was not charging high tariff for its facilities and was all for competition to benefit consumers.

During the meeting, Mr Ambani is also understood to have discussed interconnection among telecom players, spectrum allocation and introduction of 3G (third generation) services in the sector.

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