Telecom firms deny cartelisation

Bharti, Reliance Infocomm and Tata-owned VSNL today jointly said there was no cartelisation in the national and international long-distance telephony as they employed different pricing models and offered customers the freedom of choice.

On Wednesday, Communication and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran had accused the three private national long-distance operators of forming a cartel.

He also ruled out giving any compensation to them in the wake of the government's decision to usher in a new regime for national and international long-distance licences.

In a joint letter to Maran, Bharti, Reliance and VSNL said their representations were "restricted to the premise of level-playing field and no "worse off" for the existing operators, the principle recognised and supported by the government in the past."

"We, in fact, compete among ourselves in the market. We are deeply concerned by the media reports and would like to clarify that there is no cartelisation," the letter said.

"We, the long distance operators, have a long-term commitment and have made huge investments as per the licence conditions," they added.

They said they had made a joint representation "due to the absence of any association for long-distance operators and also because the issues were common".