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Our Bureau

New Delhi , March 4

THE Department of Telecommunications has sent notice to cellular operators offering local direct dialling (LDD) services to explain the routing pattern of the service, availed by roaming customers.

The notice has been sent to Airtel, Hutch and BPL among others. The move is part of DoT's initiative to seek clarity on the procedure followed by operators while offering value-added services.

LDD service, launched by mobile operators, offered roaming services between two cities at much cheaper rates. For instance, if a Delhi subscriber was roaming in Mumbai then calls originating from Mumbai would be connected to his mobile as a local call. This meant that the caller would not have to fork out STD charges to make calls to the Delhi subscriber in Mumbai. This was done by keeping the call within Mumbai network instead of routing it through the roamers home network back in Delhi.

However, DoT has now asked the mobile operators to explain the legality of the service especially in the light of the access deficit charge, payable on long distance services by all operators.

The nature of LDD service could allow the operators to circumvent the payment. DoT had earlier asked Tata Teleservices and Hutch to stop offering push-to-talk service as it was found to be violating the licence norms.

The Government has also asked Reliance Infocomm to stop offering Home Country Direct service and has imposed a penalty of Rs 150 crore on the company for not adhering to the licence norms.

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