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Kripa Raman

Mumbai , Nov. 19

AN offer of free India-based UK telephone numbers that is making the rounds here through e-mail has telecom circles here rather puzzled.

One such e-mail received by a number of people, from a representative of a firm called Open Telecom, gives out free UK phone numbers connected directly to one's international phone or fax line. "This would mean that your customers, business contacts (or friends) could simply call a UK phone number and reach you directly in your country for the cost of a standard UK call," it says.

"We connect UK numbers to international destinations all over the world and we are currently looking for new customers, including companies and private users to use our services," it says.

"Our UK Numbers are charged to the UK caller at the national fixed rate of just 10pence (about Rs 8) per minute (incl. VAT) at all times. What's more you don't pay a penny for line rental and connection charges or for the calls received!" According to a senior official with international long distance operator, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, the offer of a foreign telephone number in India is certainly illegal. "We would not know how exactly these offers work out, and how they establish connections unless there in an investigation made into them," he said.

He also wondered why such an operation should be attractive at all. "Ten pence per minute is not such an attractive rate for people in the UK." And, if this were discovered to be illegal, then the losers would be the Indian operators who would not be getting their telephone termination costs.

However, a senior official with Net 4 India, an Internet telephony operator, said he did not think the offer illegal, and said the calls too were cheaper than most UK-to-India calling rate offers.

"This can be done with UK Public Switched Telephone Networks (international standard of connecting telephones with copper wire carrying analogue voice and not digital) being connected to IP (internet protocol) circuits, which then gets transported here and is heard though a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) box."

He says this probably operates the way call centres here do - customers from PSTN networks who dial a US number think someone from the US is answering them, whereas the number actually exists in India.

So long as the calls are not transferred to a PSTN network in India, where IP to PSTN is not allowed, it is fine, he says.

However he feels the market here for such offers is very small, hazarding a guess at 100 or 150 customers India-wide. "Some people who are exporters or in other businesses might want a UK number without the expense of a UK office, so that it appears that they are located there.

"More and more networks are going to move to VoIP where for a flat fee you get unlimited calls. It is picking up in the West," he said.

However no international telephony executive could tell with certainty whether the offer of such a UK number to Indians who are not in the call centre business, is legal or not.

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