The Hindu Business Line : DoT bids to resolve interconnection row

While BSNL maintains that they are giving interconnection wherever they have capacity, private operators are not satisfied and have taken the show-cause notice to TDSAT.

New Delhi , April 7

In a bid to resolve the controversial issue of adequate points of interconnection between operators, the Department of Telecom (DoT) today began meetings with service providers individually.

It discussed the matter today with the officials from Bharti Tele-Ventures and Reliance Infocomm. DoT will also meet other operators, including Tata Teleservices, over the next few days.

Show-cause notice

Lack of adequate points of interconnection has affected telecom services across the country. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had already issued show cause notice to 5 major operators in the country for offering sub-standard quality of service.

The private operators, who claim that the interconnection between them is adequate, have blamed lack of proper interconnectivity with state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd for the poor quality of service. Points of interconnection is that physical spot where the network of one operator like Bharti gets connected to the network to another operator like BSNL. If adequate points of interconnection are not available between two networks then it may lead to congestion especially if the traffic is high. So an Airtel subscriber calling a BSNL landline subscriber may always find the network busy.

As per the TRAI quality of service report, such congestion levels arising out of lack of interconnection is deteriorating in many cities. "According to licence norms, interconnection has to be decided mutually between two operators, however, DoT's intervention clearly shows that the issue is much more complicated.

As convergence of technology and services happen and subscribers keep on adding, interconnection will become an important factor in the success of the telecom growth and, therefore, it is good that efforts are being made to address the concerns at this stage," said a market analyst.

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