The Hindu Business Line : DoT may slap penalty on Hutch

Contentious issues
No permission before launching the service.
Threat to national security due to lack of adequate monitoring systems.
Bypassing domestic long distance network.

New Delhi April 1 Even as Hutch is facing the heat from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board over its proposed sale to Vodafone, the Department of Telecom has asked the company to explain why penalty should not be imposed on Hutchison Essar for violating licence conditions by offering push-to-talk (PTT) services.

The service, which allowed Hutch subscribers to speak to another Hutch subscriber anywhere in the country at local call charges, was launched in 2005 but was pulled out within a few months after DoT had raised objections.

While the issue has been in cold storage for almost eight months after the company explained its position, DoT has once again raised the matter at a time when the company is in the process of changing ownership.

As per DoT's latest observations, Hutch has violated licence norms on three counts. First, the company has not taken permission before launching the service.

Second, the service could be a threat to national security because it did not have adequate monitoring systems in place and finally, since it bypassed the domestic long distance network, the operator did not pay levies, including the access deficit charges.

Hutch officials, however, said that the issue was two years old and the company had already given its explanation to the various notices sent by DoT.

They said that Hutch had given a written explanation to the Government and the telecom regulator in September 2006 after which the company did not hear from DoT on this issue. They also said that the particular service was wrongly termed as push-to-talk and anyway it was pulled out of the market, as it had not got encouraging response from subscribers.

DoT had earlier imposed a Rs 50-crore penalty on Tata Teleservices for offering the same service.

Tata Teleservices has, however, filed an appeal against the fine in the Supreme Court.

DoT had sought similar clarifications from the private operator on various issues, including numbering plan followed by Tatas while offering PTT and their compliance to Interconnect User Charge (IUC) and Access Deficit Charge (ADC) for STD calls.

Related Stories:
Hutch offers uniform STD rate

More Stories on : Telecommunications | Regulatory Bodies & Rulings

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

Stories in this Section
52 sugar cos offer 1,061 m litres of ethanol to oil firms

DoT may slap penalty on Hutch

Index funds - nothing beyond Sensex, Nifty

Oil India, IOC plan entity for overseas buys

Indian drugs find new markets

PFC seeks clarification from Lanco-Globeleq

States buying high-cost power to tide over summer crisis

Intel inside India in the sixties!

MFs, insurers fancy 91-day T-bills

Sentiment turns uneasy

Gains for gold, crude on geo-political fears

Public sector banks go for contract hiring