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Officials, both at BSNL and across the telecom industry, hold differing views. One senior official with one of the BSNL circles which had alleged that Reliance Infocomm was passing off international calls as originating from India itself said: "It is a breach of agreement between them and us."

According to him, since the means of dealing with the problem (namely, disconnecting Reliance's points of interconnect) were in BSNL's hands, and BSNL would also stand to lose less than Reliance Infocomm should the disconnections actually be carried out, it having the larger network of the two, the matter can be settled between the two parties.

However, not everyone at BSNL agrees with him. Senior officials at some of the other circles of BSNL issue feel it is not just a question of BSNL standing to lose revenues, but that the issue is one of security and of violation of license conditions as well.

"Very often law-enforcing agencies want to trace calls. One should see how they persist with us when they want to track down a call. Now, if a call originating from elsewhere showed up as coming from India itself, it would remain untraceable, and law enforcing agencies are not going to like that," said a senior official with a BSNL circle who feels that either the Department of Telecommunications or some other authority ought to pursue the matter more seriously.

Other telecom officials who hold the `bilateral issue' point of view, feel that when voice over Internet protocol telephony (VoIP telephony) is allowed in ILD (provided it is not through a PSTN line), calls will be untraceable anyway, and it would be irrelevant to bring in a security angle to the issue. And as such, it would end up being a bilateral issue between BSNL and Reliance Infocomm.

But BSNL officials want the security angle to be examined too. They point attention to an August news release of this year from the Ministry of Telecommunications: "With a view to curbing the menace of grey Internet telephony market and to check flourishing of illegal telephone exchanges in the country, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has decided to recover the revenue losses by imposing penalty against Internet Service Providers (ISPs) whose Internet leased lines were found being misused."

Reliance Infocomm's case is different from the above one, pointed out a BSNL official. "However, one would note that the DoT is imposing its own penalty and not asking the ILD operators who are the wronged party to settle the issue with the ISPs. So why should ours be only a bilateral issue?"

News Courtesy :  Busness Line

BHARAT Sanchar Nigam Ltd has threatened to pull the plug off Reliance Infocomm's international long distance network for allegedly carrying illegal traffic on its network. BSNL is understood to have disconnected Reliance's point of interconnection in Ahmedabad a few weeks ago because of this.

Senior BSNL officials confirmed that the matter was being taken up with Reliance at the State level wherever discrepancies were found. "It has been found that Reliance network was being used to route illegal ILD calls at various centres across the country. The issue is being taken up by BSNL officers at the local level," said a BSNL official.

However, a Reliance Infocomm spokesperson said that the company was offering services as per licence norms and no illegal activities were being undertaken. "We are not aware of any disconnections. All our points of interconnection with BSNL are working." The spat between Reliance and BSNL has been on for some time now. Earlier, Reliance had blamed the state-owned company of purposely denying interconnection, which was putting off the former's rollout plans.

Grey market concern: Meanwhile, the Department of Telecom is planning to step up monitoring and conduct raids across the country to curb the menace of the growing grey market in the international long distance segment. Already, 21 raids have been completed this year to track grey marketers, whose presence is leading to an annual loss of around Rs 1,800 crore to the exchequer, according to industry estimates.

It is also estimated that out of the total international traffic coming into India, about 30-50 per cent is now being routed via grey market operators. The low cost of operations and the difference in arbitrage between legitimate and illegal channels was keeping the grey market alive. The Cellular Phone Users' Association of India, a consumer organisation, has filed a public interest litigation with the Delhi High Court against DoT and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on the grounds that the authorities have failed to curb the growing grey market. The court has directed the Union Government to file a status report on the measures it has undertaken to tackle grey market operations.

DoT officials said that the department was cracking down on offending companies, especially Internet service providers that are allowing grey marketers to use their network. They said that as against nine raids conducted in 1998-99, the number of raids had gone up to 20 in 2003-04. TRAI, on its part, has suggested lowering the arbitrage rates for legal international long distance calls to remove the difference with the grey operators.

News Courtesy :  Busness Line

Already 21 raids have been completed this year to track grey marketers, which is leading to annual loss of around Rs 1,800 crore to the exchequer, according to industry estimates.

It is also estimated that out of the total international traffic coming into India, about 30 per cent-50 per cent is now getting routed via the grey market operators.

The low cost of operations and the difference in arbitrage between legitimate and illegal channels is keeping the grey market alive.

Meanwhile, Cellular Phone Users Association of India, a consumer organisation has filed a public interest litigation with the Delhi High Court against DoT and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on grounds that the authorities have failed to curb the growing grey market.

The court has directed the Government to file a status report before September 8, on the measures it has undertaken to tackle grey market operations.

The petition filed by the consumer group said, "The present petition is concerned with the illegal market in international long distance telephony whereby the operators bypass legal routes, depriving and cheating the exchequer of hundreds of crores of rupees and also posing a security threat by providing an unchecked means of communication to terrorists, drug traffickers, economic offenders and those indulging in human trafficking which is clearly established. Though both the DoT and the TRAI have recognised the evils attached to illegal international long distance operations, identified its modus operandi and causes, and suggested various measures for checking the same, have nonetheless not acted upon their own recommendations or implemented their directives."

DoT officials said that the department was cracking down on offending companies especially Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who were allowing grey marketers to use their network.

They said that as against the nine raids conducted on 1998-99, the number of raids had gone up to 20 in 2003-04. DoT recently imposed a fine on three leading ISPs for allowing grey traffic on their network. TRAI, on its part, has suggested lowering the arbitrage rates for legal international long distance calls to remove the difference with the grey operators.

 News Courtesy :  Busness Line