The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has suggested imposition of a penalty on Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) for offering international long distance (ILD) services to Indian customers without a licence.

DoT said SingTel was selling the full-circuit IPLC links to customers directly and also invoicing the customers in India without having a licence.

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According to ILD licence conditions, resellers are not permitted and only a licensee is solely responsible for installation, networking and operation of necessary equipment and systems for provision of service, treatment of subscriber complaints and issue of bills, among other things.

SingTel has tied up with Bharti and Tata Communications (previously VSNL), two licensed ILD operators, to offer services. Bharti and Tata Communications can provide the international lease circuit (IPLC) to the authorised service providers/customers in India and raise invoices but in this case these were raised by Bharti and VSNL to SingTel, which is neither a bonafide customer of ILD services nor a service provider in India. This shows Bharti and Tata Communications have also violated the licence conditions.

DoT would also soon start investigating the status of two companies — Singtel and Singtel Global (India) — and the loss may be recovered from the licensed ILD service provider, Singtel Global (India) Pvt Ltd, the department said in an internal note.

Last week, DoT had planned to penalise foreign telcos such as AT&T, British Telecom, Equant (France Telecom) and Verizon for illegally offering services before obtaining licences to operate in India. DoT said SingTel’s investigation would also be included with these foreign companies.

Further, all customers being provided services by SingTel may be transferred to Bharti/VSNL or SingTel Global.

A SingTel spokesperson would not comment, while Bharti and Tata Communications were not available for comments.

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