Reliance Communications approached telecom tribunal TDSAT on July 27, 2012, accusing Bharti Airtel of blocking international calls originated on its network instead of forwarding them to Intelligent Network -- a services used for toll free numbers.
A TDSAT bench headed by its Chairman Justice S B Sinha has issued the notice to Airtel and Department of Telecommunications asked the company to maintain status quo and ordered that they will not block any call to Intelligent Network (IN) numbers till August 9, the next date of hearing.
Bharti Airtel would also file a short reply within two weeks and RCom a rejoinder, it further said.
Under IN services, special toll free numbers are assigned under special 1800 series, which are free to the calling party, but a telephone carrier feed is charged from the subscriber who owns the toll free number.
In its petition RCom alleged that Bharti Airtel after five years of agreement is now contending such free calls cannot be terminated outside India as Airtel and RCom had entered into an agreement on May 8, 2007.
As per the agreement, both the firms were forwarding calls made to IN number respectively from their networks sharing a revenue of 52 paise per minute, it said.
However Airtel said that "it was fraud" on them. The agreement was only for call within India. It is illegal and that is why we have even told DoT about it".
A TDSAT bench headed by its Chairman Justice S B Sinha has issued the notice to Airtel and Department of Telecommunications asked the company to maintain status quo and ordered that they will not block any call to Intelligent Network (IN) numbers till August 9, the next date of hearing.
Bharti Airtel would also file a short reply within two weeks and RCom a rejoinder, it further said.
Under IN services, special toll free numbers are assigned under special 1800 series, which are free to the calling party, but a telephone carrier feed is charged from the subscriber who owns the toll free number.
In its petition RCom alleged that Bharti Airtel after five years of agreement is now contending such free calls cannot be terminated outside India as Airtel and RCom had entered into an agreement on May 8, 2007.
As per the agreement, both the firms were forwarding calls made to IN number respectively from their networks sharing a revenue of 52 paise per minute, it said.
However Airtel said that "it was fraud" on them. The agreement was only for call within India. It is illegal and that is why we have even told DoT about it".
