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Currently, domestic call centres are permitted only to receive calls at various other cities, which are carried over leased line to the city where the call centre is located.

New Delhi , Aug. 29

THE Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has modified the call-centre guidelines to permit ITES-BPO companies to make outgoing calls from their domestic call centre set-up.

Further, international call centres will also be allowed to use ATMs (asynchronous transfer mode)/ MPLS (multi-protocol label switching)/frame relay-based managed international networks in addition to the existing provision of connectivity through point-to-point international private leased circuits (IPLC).

This is expected to help the ITES-BPO sector benefit from the latest technology thereby making the business more cost effective and also add to competitive edge in the sector over emerging markets in Asia such as Thailand, the Philippines and China.

Currently, domestic call centres are permitted only to receive calls at various other cities, which are carried over leased line to the city where the call centre is located. In this set-up, it is not permitted to make a call from the call centre to a customer in any other city, as the PSTN (public switched telephone network) line is incoming only.

In the international call centre, both incoming and outgoing call is permitted over the IPLC. The international call centre is meant for international clients and as such it has only one IPLC connectivity and no PSTN connectivity at the Indian end. Only IT-enabled services are permitted to use bandwidth with it in the time-sharing mode. This means that international call centres and IT-enabled services like software development can share bandwidth both IPLC and local leased line, but the complete system does not have PSTN connectivity

Nasscom, the apex industry association for software and service companies has welcomed the changes and stated that it would act as a benefactor to the industry.

Mr Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom, said, "We are pleased that the Government has been very prompt and receptive in accepting almost all of our recommendations as and when they have arisen, especially with respect to the ITES-BPO sector.

In order to maintain a steady growth and maintain our lead over other emerging countries in the ITES-BPO market, there has been a need to simplify and remove certain bottlenecks that have been hampering the growth of the Indian ITES-BPO industry."

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