According to Bharti Airtel, DoT needs to liberalize the process of allocation of numbers to operators and the former has written a formal letter to the government body asking it to do the same. While doing so, the carrier has taken a stand that is in contrast to the COAI, a GSM industry body.
A PTI report has revealed that the service provider is not very happy with the current guidelines. As of now, any new operator is given merely 10 lakh numbers to start with in a particular circle and they can only get new ones after they add subscribers. And it is this particular criteria that needs to be changed, says Airtel.
In the letter addressed to DoT Secretary MF Farooqui, the carrier which is the biggest in the country in terms of subscribers has said that the policies that are being followed in India are stringent and are the reason why delays are caused. It limits customers to start with and eventually even goes on to pose a problem for the operators by restricting the ability to acquire new subscribers.
As we said, Airtel’s this request goes against the one made by COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India). The latter asked DoT to stick to the existing rules and allocate 10 lakh numbers to Reliance Jio Infocomm. RJIL has reportedly asked for 4 crore numbers to start 4G operations in India in 22 circles.
While COAI is urging the government body to not give any advantages to the new operators, Airtel is asking it to change the rules to benefit the operators. The service provider also wants DoT to speed up the process of transferring unused fixed line numbers to mobile services.