Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL) has violated the provisions of the Telecommunication Act, 2023 by awarding telecom infrastructure deployment to a third-party IP-I vendor, said telco body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on Monday.
Stating that COAI strongly opposes the “illegal and anti-consumer model” adopted by the MMRCL for provisioning telecom infrastructure on Metro Line 3 (Colaba–Bandra–Aarey corridor), the industry body issued a statement saying, “Under the current telecom licensing framework, IP-I providers are prohibited from deploying active infrastructure. This move not only breaches the Telecommunication Act, 2023, but also sidelines licensed Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) who are legally authorised and technically equipped to independently deploy mobile networks. Deploying such network(s) are a norm, even in important places like the PWD tunnel in Pragati Maidan or the Central Vista wherein the TSPs are laying infrastructure without paying any cost to anyone (including any third party).”
Earlier, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Reliance Jio had jointly proposed to install a common In-Building Solution (IBS) network across the metro corridor. However, the plans hit a rut as the telcos said MMRCL’s selected partner ACES offered “unviable rates” to the telcos.
“MMRC arbitrarily rejected their request for Right of Way (RoW) permissions, citing the selection of a vendor through its internal tender process. This decision prioritizes commercial gains over public convenience and stands in blatant violation of the Telecommunication Act, 2023, which guarantees fair, non-discriminatory access to public infrastructure for licensed TSPs,” said COAI.
Further, it called MMRCL’s selection of a vendor-driven model an anti-competitive practice, to extract unjustified commercial returns.
Earlier news reports had said Airtel and Vi had agreed on a joint deployment of IBS as per the MMRCL’s mandate. However, COAI called the claims factually incorrect and said, “No member TSP of COAI has signed any agreement with MMRC’s vendor.” As such, it asked the MMRCL to immediately reconsider its current stance.