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Our Bureau

New Delhi , Jan. 16

THE Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued show-cause notice to Tata Teleservices, Reliance Infocomm and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), for `misleading' the consumers by positioning their fixed wireless phones as similar to mobiles.

The fresh missive from TRAI comes after the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) had asked the telecom regulator to withdraw an earlier notice, which ordered the three operators to withdraw the `misleading' advertisements. Tata Teleservices had approached the telecom tribunal against the TRAI order, on grounds that the company was not given any chance to explain its stand.

Tata Teleservices had told the TDSAT that there had been no notice from TRAI and there was nothing `misleading' in its advertisement. The company said that it had invested Rs 16-18 crore in building the brand name `Walky' and by asking them to withdraw the said advertisement, when there is no offensive in it, would hurt the company.

While Tata Tele has positioned its fixed wireless phone `Walky' as `Freedom of Mobility at Landline Rates', Reliance calls such a service `Unlimited Cordless' and MTNL's Garuda fixed wireless is called `Mobile bhi landline bhi'. TRAI has given them a time-period till January 24 to reply to the show-cause notice.

TRAI said since the Interconnect Usage Charges (IUC) and the Access Deficit Charge (ADC) regimes treat calls from mobile and fixed line, differently, the operators need to advertise correctly on what they are offering. The regulator said that if they continued to claim the services as mobile telephony then it might have to charge the three operators rates that are applicable for cellular operators.

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