BSNL reconnects its landlines with pvt mobile cos in Punjab

Chandigarh, Oct 28: After nearly a month of disruption, state-owned telecom major BSNL today (Oct 28) restored services between its landline telephones and private mobile operators. The services have been restored following fresh directions issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to BSNL to restore the services by today (Oct 28).

"The Points of Interconnect (providing connectivity between BSNL landline phones and mobile phones) of private operators within Punjab have been restored, following directions from the head office," a BSNL official said here.

Earlier last week, BSNL had ignored similar directions of TRAI, after which private mobile operators again approached the regulatory body.

On September 29, BSNL's Punjab circle had disconnected the services to five mobile operators including Airtel, Vodafone, Tata Teleservices, Reliance Communication and Idea, on account of pending dues amounting to Rs13 crore.

Customers could not call on different networks in Punjab, Chandigarh and Panchkula in Haryana. BSNL landline subscribers could not make a call to mobile subscribers of private mobile operators and vice-versa.

On October 3, BSNL restored services to Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices as telecom tribunal TDSAT stayed BSNL from disconnecting services of the two private operators. BSNL, following hardships faced by those in distress, had restored services to emergency numbers like 100, 101, 102 and 108 in the Punjab circle.

In Punjab, BSNL has about 11.91 lakh landline customers, while mobile operators such as, Airtel, Vodafone and Idea had 67.09 lakh, 42.30 lakh, and 47.34 lakh subscribers respectively as on July 31.

PTI