Referring to media reports on the service, COAI said, "The development depicted by these media reports is completely shocking and surprising as this App is completely against all regulatory and licensing principles. This app violated licence conditions, breaches existing interconnect agreement, poses grave security risks and violates Numbering plan..."
The BSNL service allowing customers to make landline calls using mobile phone and vice-versa was launched by Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in presence of telecom secretary JS Deepak on March 17.
BSNL had announced that it would launch the service on April 2. However, it is yet to start the Fixed Mobile Telephony service as it has not finalised tariffs for the new plan.
"There is no violation of rules from these services. This kind of reaction from industry is obvious because BSNL is revamping its offerings for customers and no one in industry has been able to such innovative services," BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava said.
"There is a turnaround at BSNL. We are gaining customers which is hitting private operators. We appreciate competition that is paving for innovative service for customers like FMT that we have launched," Shrivastava said.
COAI said that interconnect agreement between telecom
operators do not provide for internet telephony calls and such facility is a clear case of tampering with caller identification in such calls that can pose "grave security risks".
"The App based calling will immediately deprive other telecom service providers (TSPs), the legal and valid termination charge of 53 paisa from an international call," COAI said.
"Routing of such calls is not as per the licence or any instructions of DoT as it aims to convert the international roaming calls in to local calls. Even assuming that such calls are not internet telephony call, it cannot use the landline or mobile number in place of IP (Internet protocol) address," COAI said requesting BSNL to immediately stop the launch of this service.