Trai ruling on call charges overturned

The Telecom Dispute Settlement & Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) has dismissed a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) order involving Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL).

The order, with regard to the handing over of calls with carriage charges, said Trai had no jurisdiction over disputes between two service providers.

BSNL had challenged Trai's three communications which had allowed HFCL, a basic service provider in Punjab, to hand over calls to BSNL at an intermediate point (known as far-end hand-over). According to BSNL, this has been resulting in BSNL losing carriage charges as these charges are levied on the basis of distance.

HFCL was carrying the calls till the maximum distance possible on its own network and handing them over to BSNL only for termination. Thus, HFCL had to pay minimum or no carriage charges to BSNL.

TDSAT quashed and set aside the impugned three communications of Trai, sent on December 4, December 17 and December 22 last year, and also held that HFCL was not entitled to hand over its traffic as they were seeking to.

Trai had even issued a showcause notice to BSNL asking it to explain why action should not be taken against it for violating the regulator's directions. The chairman and managing director of BSNL was asked to appear before the Trai.