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BSNL seeks nod to snap VSNL service

Thomas K Thomas in New Delhi

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has sought permission from the ministry of communications to immediately terminate the interconnect agreement with Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd for routing international long-distance calls and be allowed to choose ILD operators, which are offering the best rates.

In a letter to the secretary, department of telecommunications, BSNL has said it has sought legal opinion on the issue and has been "advised that BSNL is duty-bound to immediately choose those ILD operators offering the least-cost routing, that is the best rates and packages, for carrying the default traffic originating from the BSNL network for different international routes".

The move came even as VSNL sources said a high-level meeting was being held by the two sides as a last-ditch effort to come to an agreement.

The legal opinion to BSNL is that the firm should immediately stop terminating VSNL's ILD calls on its network if the latter declines to pay the former at the rates offered by the other ILD operators.

In its letter to department of telecommunications, BSNL has said it has been holding discussions with VSNL for the finalisation of the interconnect agreement, but no revenue sharing arrangement has been agreed to.

BSNL has said, so far it has been providing services to VSNL as per the verbal instructions of the department of telecommunications and is maintaining the status quo though VSNL has not paid anything to BSNL as yet for the use of the network from April 1, 2002, leading to a revenue loss of Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) per day.

"It is requested that BSNL may be permitted to take decisions as per its commercial policy to route its outgoing calls through the least-cost route," BSNL said.

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