BSNL drags Trai to tribunal

State-owned telecom behemoth Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) has filed a petition with the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), challenging the telecom regulator's interconnection rules. In a suit against the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), BSNL has alleged that this ruling would lead to a loss of about Rs 100 crore per year to the company.

The petition was accepted by TDSAT and the tribunal has issued a notice to Trai, directing the regulator to file a reply within two weeks. Trai, in a notice issued on February 2, amended telecommunication interconnection (port) charges, reducing these by 23-29 per cent.

The revised port charges are to be in the range of Rs 10,500 to Rs 39,000, from the existing range of Rs 14,000 to Rs 55,000.

A port is a location where the handshake (exchange of connections) between two telecom operators takes place. This is crucial when a subscriber of an operator tries to connect to another operator. BSNL is the largest network and port provider in the country.

BSNL, in its petition said, this would result in a loss of around Rs 100 crore and alleged that the ruling would result in a gain to private operators.

The state-owned telecom major also contended that while deciding the port charges, Trai has not taken into consideration the cost of equipment installed by the company to provide interconnection.

In its amendment to port charges in February, Trai had said that the move would help in further reducing mobile tariffs as it expected the service providers to pass on the benefit to consumers. Trai was also expecting to address a long-standing demand of private operators, who are the major interconnection seekers.