ASSOCIATION OF UNIFIED TELECOM SERVICE PROVIDERS OF INDIA AUSPI Vs. BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LTD THROUGH ITS CHAIRMAN AND MANAGING DIRECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE present Petition is filed under Section 14(a) of TRAI Act, 1997 challenging various orders, the demand notices threatening disconnection of the Points of Interconnect (POIs) of the Member Service Providers of the Petitioner Association in the event of failure to meet the alleged arbitrary and unilateral demands raised by the Respondent and its field units.

(2.) The Petitioner is the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) representing the interests of its Members who are at present Unified Access Service Providers. The Members of the Petitioner Association were the erstwhile Private Basic Service Operators (BSOs) before migrating to the UASL regime.

(3.) EACH service provider connects its network with the other service provider's network by interconnecting its Trunk Automatic Exchange (TAX) / Mobile Switching Centres (MSCs) with that of the other through a transmission link. These transmission links normally consist of optical fibre cable between the two exchanges and connected through terminal equipments at both ends of this Optical Fibre. Alternatively, this could be connected through a microwave link provided at both ends. The service provider asking for interconnection with the other operator is called interconnection seeker and the service provider providing the same is called interconnection provider. As per the TRAI Regulation, the later entrant is the interconnection seeker. The said interconnection links between the two exchanges can be either active or passive. An active link involves Optical Lines Terminal Equipment (OLTE) at both ends and passive link involves only connection through copper wire on one end which is passive interconnection and the other end where OLTE is placed, is called active end. In the Petition under consideration, the Members of the Petitioner Association had asked for interconnection links from the Respondent where in some cases the links were provided as active links and in some other cases due to constraint for availability of space or for some other reasons like Trade Union problems, the Respondent's end was provided with passive end. For providing passive interconnection, the petitioners had to hire premises outside the respondent's premises where the equipment was housed and from this end to the respondent's premises only cable was extended for interconnection to the respondent's network.