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Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has threatened to disconnect links with Idea Cellular across seven circles on the grounds that the private operator has not signed a fresh interconnection agreement.
If BSNL carries out its threat, Idea Cellular’s subscribers in the seven circles will not be able to make calls to the PSU’s mobile and fixed-line telephone users, and vice versa.
The circles are Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Kolkata, North East, Odisha, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) and West Bengal.
BSNL has complained to the Department of Telecom (DoT) that Idea Cellular has not signed the contract despite getting reminders over the past eight months.
Idea Cellular had lost the licences for these circles after the Supreme Court scrapped 122 licences as part of its ruling on the 2G spectrum scam.
However, the company received new licences in 2013 and managed to win fresh spectrum in the auction.
According to BSNL, the earlier interconnection agreement with Idea Cellular expired with the court cancelling the licences and the private player should have renegotiated a fresh agreement for the new permits.
Connecting sans agreementA BSNL official said that the ongoing interconnection between the two players is without a valid agreement.
“Based on our legal advice, we told Idea that a fresh interconnection agreement will be required to be signed and Idea will have to pay provisioning charges,” said the official. “But even after eight months of the grant of new licences by DoT, Idea Cellular has neither approached BSNL or responded to a request for a fresh agreement.”
Idea Cellular did not respond to an email sent by BusinessLine but industry representatives said that the DoT had assured all operators who took part in the spectrum auction that there will be continuity of network agreements.
But BSNL disagrees. “It is requested that instructions be given to Idea Cellular for immediate signing of an interconnect agreement with BSNL along with payment of applicable charges,” stated a BSNL letter to DoT.
This is not the first time BSNL and a private operator have fought over interconnection.
In 2011, the state-owned company had threatened to pull the plug on all private players, after they declined to pay the carriage charges fixed by BSNL. But with market share dynamics shifting towards private players, such threats have not been carried out because a disconnection would hurt the PSU’s subscribers more.
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