BackTDSAT issues notice to Trai on termination charges
TDSAT issues notice to Trai on termination charges
PremiumCrossed wires: TDSAT has issued the notice over Trai’s recent regulation reducing mobile termination charges to 20 paise per minute. Harikrishna Katragadda / Mint
New Delhi: India’s Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) has issued a notice to Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) over reducing mobile termination charges to 20 paise per minute.
Termination charge is money paid by an operator to another on whose network the call ends.
Admitting a petition filed by the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India that challenged the 9 March order, TDSAT asked Trai to reply by 24 April.
The tribunal will hear the matter again on 5 May.
Separately, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), said it will petition the Supreme Court against a recent TDSAT order that rejected its plea against the government’s spectrum allocation policy.
COAI will file its petition at the apex court later this week, people familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity.
COAI, a lobby group of mobile telephony firms offering services on the global system for mobile communications (GSM) technology platform, had also alleged irregularities in the manner in which spectrum was allocated to Reliance Communications Ltd, India’s second biggest mobile phone service provider by customers that also offers services on the rival code division multiple access (CDMA) platform.
“We are unable to agree with COAI that the DoT’s (department of telecom) impugned order of October 19, 2007, has disturbed the level playing field," TDSAT said in its judgement. “We hold that there is nothing irregular in grant of 4.4 MHz as start-up spectrum to respondent (RCom)," he had said.
The tribunal had also rejected COAI’s contention that as per licence condition and National Telecom Policy of 1999, they had the right to hold spectrum up to 15 MHz.
In August last year, the Delhi high court had rejected COAI’s writ petition challenging TDSAT’s ruling. The single-member bench of the court had held that the government’s decision to allow use of dual technology for mobile services and its revised spectrum norms were fair and did not disturb the level playing field.
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