Five Basic Telecom Firms Accept Terms Conditionally
The sixth company, Reliance Telecom, had not made its intentions clear when Business Standard went to press.
Yesterday was the last date given to the companies to sign the licence and interconnect agreements. The companies which gave their conditional acceptance to the department of telecommunications are: Essar-Bell Atlantic for the Punjab circle, Tata-Bell Canada (Andhra Pradesh), RPG-NTT (Tamil Nadu), Hughes Ispat (Maharashtra) and Techno Telecom of the Usha India group (Bihar).
It was not clear whether DoT would accept the conditional acceptance of the LoIs. In a letter to the companies, the department had insisted that the companies accept the licence and interconnect agreements unconditionally. DoT officials were not available for comment.
Top officials of telecom meetings were huddled in meetings all through the day. Representatives of five of the LoI holders held meetings with Probhatendu Khan, member (planning) of the telecom commission to try and sort out the contentious issues in the licence and interconnect agreements.
The meeting, which started at 5.30 pm, went on for two-and-half hours after which the company functionaries and DoT officials comprising the basic services group shifted to communications secretary, M P Modis room.
The companies are understood to have tendered their letters of conditional acceptance at the meeting with Modi. They have said in their letters that they accept the LoI subject to negotiation on certain issues. The issues are high interconnection charges, one-sided penalty charges, force majeure clauses, takeover of the licensees network etc.
The stalemate over basic telecom services came about after communications minister, Beni Prasad Verma issued an ultimatum to the six LoI holders to sign the licence and interconnect agreeements by yesterday or face legal consequences under the tender conditions.
The ministers warning came even as DoT decided to allow assignability of the operating licences. The department refused to reduce the interconnection charges as demanded by the companies.
Verma had asserted that DoT would not grant further extensions to the companies after yesterday.