WLL firms swear by licence compliance

Reliance Infocomm and Tata Teleservices, leading WLL (wireless in local loop) limited mobility operators, said they were offering services strictly conforming to the norms of basic operators licence.

Cellular operators, on the other hand, said they would like to be part of the discussion on unified licence since the move involved violation of their contractual agreement.

The clarification comes in the wake of an observation made by the group of ministers on telecom, headed by Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, that basic operators, who were violating the licence norms, were doing it at their own risk.

The GoM had met on Saturday to discuss the issue of unified licence and limited mobility. Pradip Baijal, chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, and Deepak Parekh, chairman of HDFC, had also given a presentation on the issue to the GoM.

"The company uses 'CDMA1x' technology to offer WLL mobile telephony services to its customers and has adhered, in letter and spirit, to conditions under which it had obtained the license to offer these services", TTSL said in a statement.

There was no risk to the Tata Indicom service due to any possible violation of regulatory guidelines, the statement added.

Reliance Infocomm, which was earlier pulled up by the Telecom Engineering Committee, the technical wing of the department of telecom, for violating the licence norms also said the call forwarding facility being offered to WLL subscribers was part of the basic operators licence.

Meanwhile, the cellular operators said they were prepared to sit on the negotiating table with the government to arrive at a solution to the WLL imbroglio.

Top cellular industry officials said they were ready to accept unified licensing if suitable compensation was given to them.

They also said the GoM had a difficult task in justifying unified licence without compensation in the light of the recent Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal judgement which noted that WLL services was infringing on the cellular operators market and therefore it needed to be differentiated.

"If the GoM allows WLL operators to become a full mobile, they are further reducing its differentiation with cellular operators. This is against the contractual agreement for which the government will have to provide compensation," said a cellular operator.

Communications Minister Arun Shourie on Saturday said the issue of WLL limited mobility was linked to implementing the unified licence.

This could mean that Reliance would be allowed to offer full mobile services which would dilute the impact of the any decision to limit WLL services strictly within a short distance charging area.

Briefing media persons after the GOM meeting, Shourie said the issue of limiting mobility provided by basic operators would be discussed in the next meeting on October 12.

Basic telecom operators violating the licence terms and subscribers availing themselves of such facilities would be doing so at their "own risk," the minister added.

"We are looking at various steps to check them and their subsequent consequences. The moment you take any step it may lead to litigations. So we are proceeding with great deliberation and will exhaust all options before taking a final decision," said Shourie.

He also said the process to unify licences could resolve some of the contentious issues, but some drastic measures were necessary while switching over to the unified licence regime.

On the issue of the time required for unification of licences, Shourie said it "could not be done by merely switching a button."