The Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) today asked cellular and basic operators to furnish data relating to subscriber base, network costs and licence fees to support their case in the controversial wireless-in-local-loop (WLL) limited mobility issue.
The three-member Bench, headed by Justice D P Wadhwa, has said the WLL case will come up for further hearing on March 31, and on April 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9.
The tribunal also allowed Reliance as a party in the case. Until now, the WLL service providers were being represented by the Association of Basic Telecom Operators.
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A decision from TDSAT on the WLL issue will be significant because the industry panel constituted by Communications Minister Arun Shourie failed to reach an out-of-court settlement despite month-long negotiations.
The panel, headed by Telecom Secretary Vinod Vaish, admitted that the issue would now looked into by the TDSAT.
However, a decision from the tribunal may not put an end to this two-year turf war because the losing side may approach the higher courts. In December 2002, the Supreme Court had set aside a verdict of TDSAT allowing basic operators to provide limited mobile services and had asked it to re-examine the issue.