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Trai jams Bharti revenue-share plan

Thomas K Thomas

In yet another blow to Bharti's long distance services plans, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has said it has not yet approved the revenue sharing arrangement between Bharti Telesonic and the cellular operators.

Trai has also directed the cellular operators not to retain any pass through charge other than what the regulator had specified in its earlier determination.

While the Trai determination of December 14, 2001 stipulated that cellular operators can retain only 5 per cent of the STD revenue, Bharti has offered 25 per cent to the cellular operators.

In an affidavit filed with the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal, Trai said: "It is stated that the proposed arrangements under which the cellular mobile service providers and Bharti Telenet, who have entered into an interconnection agreement with Bharti Telesonic, will retain 25 per cent of the pass through revenue, has not yet received Trai's approval."

While Bharti officials refused to comment on the issue since the matter is pending a decision from the TDSAT, industry sources said the Trai determination has certain grey areas.

"The Interconnection Order 2001 clearly recognises mutually agreeable interconnection and revenue sharing arrangement. It is only in case the two parties fail to arrive at a mutually agreed settlement, the rates specified by the regulator shall prevail. In the case of Bharti and cellular operators the revenue share has been arrived through mutual agreement," a cellular operator said.

With no interconnection with BSNL and MTNL and with no clarity on the carrier access codes, Bharti's long distance operations have not fully taken off since it launched its services almost six months back.

It had got interconnection only with the cellular operators giving the NLDO access to about 6 million cellular subscribers.

Even in cell-to-cell calls, only those subscribers who were dialling the CAC was being routed through Bharti's network while the default calls (calls without CAC) are being routed through BSNL's network.

Both BSNL and MTNL has also said the right to fix STD tariffs should be with them, instead of Bharti.

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