Airtel seeks withdrawal of show-cause notice

GSM operator Bharti Airtel has sought the withdrawal of a showcause notice issued by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for installation of a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) gateway.

The company, in a letter to the DoT, said it had neither violated any licence condition nor compromised on the monitoring aspect of the gateway. It also stated that it was paying access deficit charges (ADC) and maintaining the quality of service of its telecom operations.

"We request the DoT to consider our submissions favourably and withdraw the showcause notice," the letter read.

The VoIP gateway was installed at the company's international long distance gateway to which the licencor had earlier raised objections.

It stated that the company had set up the gateway without approval and was also not in line with the definition of managed VoIP. Later, in July this year, the DoT sent a notice to the company.

According to Bharti's submissions, no approval for installation of VoIP gateway station is required as the licence conditions are restricted to only the installation of the gateway station at a particular location. Moreover, it should also have the monitoring capacity at the particular location.

The company also stated that it had received all requisite approvals for installation of the ILD gateway station and the monitoring capacity of the station was approved by the designated security agencies.

A Bharti Airtel spokesperson declined to comment.

Meanwhile, on the DoT's notice for offering services within 10 km of the international border area, the company said the site was radiated for around 7-8 days on a testing basis. This means that the company would only commence operations after getting the requisite approvals.

Bharti has been served the notice for operating a cell site at Jai Nagar in Bihar earlier this month. The company has sought for the withdrawal of the notice.

The department was of opinion that the operator had violated the licence conditions and sought an explanation to why a financial penalty not exceeding Rs 50 crore not be imposed on the company.

The notice, served earlier this week, also sought response from the company and asked why its licence should not be terminated.