The Hindu Business Line : Cellular operators seek DoT help to sign roaming pact with BSNL

IF you are a Hutch or Airtel subscriber and you travel to a remote pocket of Bihar, chances are that your cell-phone will be rendered useless, while your friend with a Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL)'s `CellOne' mobile phone connection will be able to call up home.

That is because BSNL does not have reciprocal roaming agreements with any of the private operators.

Sore over BSNL's refusal to enter into roaming agreements with them, private cellular operators have approached the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Commission of India demanding that the State-owned company be asked to sign reciprocal roaming agreements with them.

"This unjust behaviour of BSNL (refusal to have mutual roaming arrangements) is creating water-tight compartments for private cellular users who are not able to use BSNL's cellular network while roaming. Similarly, BSNL's subscribers are unable to use our networks while roaming outside their service area," according to a representation made before the DoT recently. The meeting was attended by representatives of both Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and the Association of Basic Telecom Operators (ABTO), which represent the GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) mobile phone service providers respectively.

When contacted, the BSNL Chairman and Managing Director, Mr V.P. Sinha, said that staying away from mutual roaming arrangements with private operators was a commercial decision of the company and he felt no need for such agreements.

"It is our USP (unique selling proposition) and we want to keep it that way. They (private operators) too have licenses and let them roll out their networks in rural areas where they do not have coverage," Mr Sinha said, referring to the better reach of the state-owned operator.

The private operators have also demanded that the single nation-wide licence of the state-owned operator be split into circles on the lines of the private operators to ensure parity.

"With BSNL operating under a single licence, they are free to carry calls anywhere on their network. But we have to pay transfer charges. Plus, there are issues with interconnection. To overcome these problems, we have suggested that the BSNL licence should be split up to ensure a level-playing field and boost investor confidence," an industry source told Business Line.

Other contentious issues for which the private operators have sought DoT's intervention include billing issues, direct connectivity with BSNL and distance-based charging by the Government-owned company.

"The Government has to ensure that the rules of the game are same for both state-owned and private sector companies. That would ultimately benefit the users of these services," the source said.