The Hindu Business Line : It will become an IN-thing for all callers

TELEPHONE users will soon be able to access all the help-line numbers, toll-free numbers, tele-voting numbers and premium numbers like those offered by astrologers, irrespective of the operators from whom they have taken the connection.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, in its draft regulation on Intelligent Networks has asked the operators to give access of all such numbers to all telephone users.

At present, most IN numbers like the Maruti Help Line number 1600-11-15-15 and the Domino's Pizza number 1600-11-11-23 are accessible to users of a particular operator only. Some of the operators were restricting access to maintain exclusivity of service to attract subscribers. An open access would mean that an AirTel subscriber would be able to access all the IN-based services hosted by Hutch and vice versa.

The regulator has also suggested that the operators could also enter into a revenue sharing arrangement or a rental if there was a cost incurred by any operator in offering a service. "In most of the countries, Intelligent Network Services are easily accessible by all the users. As such, any subscriber of any access provider is able to access the IN Services provided by any other service provider. In contrast, in India at present subscribers are able to access the IN platform of their own service provider only," TRAI said.

Reacting to the proposed regulation, a Maruti spokesperson said, "This is an interesting development. It will bring in traffic. We were among the first to start toll free service. However, despite the increase in mobile subscribers we were not being able to realise the full potential of technology. We welcome this development."

"All telecom consumers in the country shall have access to Multi-Operator Multi-Service Intelligent Network Platform of their choice and no operator should be allowed to block his consumers from accessing IN platforms of his choice. It shall be the access providers' prerogative to deploy their Intelligent Network," said a TRAI press release.

The final regulation is likely to come by January.

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It will become an IN-thing for all callers