The Hindu Business Line : Reliance Info to challenge penalty

RELIANCE Infocomm will challenge the penalty imposed by the Department of Telecom (DoT) for alleged violation of international long-distance (ILD) licence conditions.

The company will send its reply to the DoT notice in the next few days, pleading that it had complied with all licensing norms. DoT had sent a notice last week indicating a penalty of Rs 150 crore on Reliance for routing of ILD calls as if they were local calls.

Reliance executives said the penalty was unfair since the ILD calls in question were being routed through a service called Home Country Direct service, which is recognised both by DoT and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The company said the nature of call routing in Home Country Direct service is such that the caller line identification (CLI) would show it as a local number despite it being an ILD call.

The ITU defines Home Country Direct service as a two-stage call where in the subscriber first has to call a toll-free number to get the credentials verified; then the call is routed to the destination in India. Therefore, when the subscriber in India receives the call, he gets the CLI of the Reliance Infocomm switch and not of the actual caller.

"In a call routed through an interactive voice response or an operator, the caller line identification is never that of the original caller. It takes the number of the switch where the call is terminated within the country. It is a feature of the technology and not intentional as is being charged," said a Reliance executive.

The company also produced documents that indicate that IVR-based long-distance calls from state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd shows a different caller line identification from that of the original caller.

Meanwhile, the Communication Ministry on Tuesday ruled out cancellation of Reliance's ILD licence for the violation.

"We are awaiting the response from Reliance and then we will decide on the penalty. But cancellation of licence would only create more problems," said Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Communication and IT minister.

More Stories on : Corporate Disputes | Telecommunications

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page