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"TRAI ruling partisan and one-sided"

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

NEW DELHI: India's private cellular firms said that they were opposed to unified licensing for both cellular and basic phone services as recommended by the sector regulator because it violated their agreement with the government.



In a letter to a high power ministerial panel, the GSM companies said the Telecom Regulatory Authority's suggestion that cellular and basic services should be unified under a single permit were "partisan and one-sided".



The panel, which has already given an in-principle approval to the unified licence, will meet on Thursday to decide on the proposal.



Analysts said the regulator's proposals will help fixed line phone companies like Reliance Infocom Ltd, a division of the Reliance group, which were allowed by the federal government in 2001 to offer limited mobility services within city limits to compete with cellular companies.



Cellular firms had said the federal policy was against their licence agreement, which stipulated that mobile services could be offered only by them.



Cellular companies had petitioned various courts but the federal policy was upheld by the top telecom court.



On Tuesday, cellular firms such as Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd filed a petition in the Supreme Court claiming the CDMA-based limited radius facilities were illegal.



The court is yet to set a date for a hearing.



Reuters

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