Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd today approached the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal against the order of Trai to split STD calls without bearing the access codes equally with Bharti. The first hearing is slated for tomorrow.
When contacted, DPS Seth, chairman and managing director of BSNL, confirmed that the PSU had filed its appeal against the Trai order today.
BSNL on Friday had asked Trai to defer the implementation of operations by Bharti Telesonic till issues pertaining to billing, revenue-sharing between access providers and national long-distance operators were sorted out.
Meanwhile pleased by the revenue-sharing bonanza arising out of the telecom regulator's interim revenue sharing order on mobile-to-mobile long-distance calls, Bharti today said that it was surprised by the proposed arrangement for the sharing of revenue for default calls (with no access codes). Asked if he expected such a windfall share in default revenue, Bharti's chairman and managing director Sunil Mittal said even Bharti was surprised by it. Mittal said the volume of default calls was likely to come down as consumer awareness was promoted and the upgradation of BSNL's numbering plan was undertaken.
BSNL on the other hand has expressed its disagreement with the regulator's interim order which directed cellular and basic operators to divert STD calls not bearing the carrier access codes to Bharti and BSNL on alternative days.
In its communication to Trai, BSNL also said that the regulator's directive should be applicable only to cell-to-cell STD calls. It said before the introduction of the carrier access codes, two major issues needed to be taken care of- creating awareness among the subscribers about the facility which gave them the freedom to choose their STD operators and to take care of the technical and the billing-related issues. Any attempt to introduce access codes without sorting out the technical issues may lead to the collapse of the network.
BSNL also termed the Trai directive to split traffic between the two national long distance operators (NLDO)as impractical, since, ensuring transparency of such an arrangement was nearly impossible considering the large number of operators and the amount of traffic involved. BSNL also expressed its reservation on parting with 50 per cent of its business to Bharti which, according to the PSU, had become an NLDO with limited investments.
