Bharti Enterprises would be seeking a level playing field for national long distance operations (NLDO) if the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) goes ahead with its plan for a three-tier system to provide cheaper telecom access in rural areas.
While Trai feels this would bring down the cost of telephony for users, the revenue model may prove to be a headache for major network operators like Bharti.
Trai was close to finalising a triple-tier national access structure for NLDO, with dedicated networks at the top of the pyramid, voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) at the next level and Net-based telephony (NT) for lower end users in rural areas of the country.
The cost would be highest for the first, and lowest for Net telephony, with VOIP occupying the middle space.
"While it would be wrong to say that NT is cheap or poor quality, Bharti would always strive to see that the access fees and service terms for all operators in NLDO remain fair. It would be unjust if service licenses are offered at a much lower price on the basis of pre-determined tech parameters after selling the first service license at a much higher price," top Bharti sources said.
Bharti already operates at all three levels of the proposed structure. It operates or had obtained licenses for dedicated services, besides having substantial say in NT as a Internet service provider (ISP).
As for VOIP, it was being used by subscribers anyway because the software and technology were already freely available.
However, Bharti's ISP service was focused on corporate users and business solutions for large users rather than retail subscribers.
For retail consumers, Bharti's offerings were through its cellular and fixed line phone services.
It has a subscriber base of over 1.1 million at present. It enjoys a market share of around 50 per cent in its network area, which in turn has nearly 85 per cent of the total cellular users in the country.
Kolkata update soon to be over
The upgradation of the Bharti Mobinet cell phone network in Kolkata will be completed in another two-three weeks.
The fully modernised network would then be in a position to launch several more value-added services for customers, who number nearly 1 lakh, or a just below half the market.
"We took over a network that was far from perfect in terms of technology and instead of taking the easy way out by investing in a Nokia network, Bharti invested heavily in a totally new system to deliver better service to customers," sources added.
Despite the addition of more base stations, the network was yet to achieve optimum capacity. Bharti Enterprises is the holding company for the Bharti Mobinet cellular phone service in Kolkata and the Airtel and Magic brands nationally.
