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Govt urged to review Convergence Bill

BS Corporate Bureau

The Call Centre Association of India has urged the government to take a re-look at the Convergence Bill and eliminate policy anomalies, including the dual licensing and restrictions on the use of a single number facility.

In a memorandum to Union Communications Minister Pramod Mahajan, the CCAI stressed that international and domestic traffic should be allowed to terminate at the same premises.

"This will ensure optimum utilisation of infrastructure and best service to clients," it said.

"There is a need to take a re-look at some of the provisions of the Convergence Bill which may not work in the best interests of the IT-enabled services industry, the association said. It pointed out that the present law permits leasing of IPLC from VSNL only for international call centres.

"As private operators are permitted to provide ILD circuits and VoIP-based voice circuits for international access, this facility should be extended to the call centre industry as well," it said.

The association said that another area of concern is pricing and availability of band width. It suggested that there was a need to examine he feasibility of usage-based tariffs as an alternative.

The CCAI requested Mahajan to consider different slab rates for bandwidth to cater to the scalability aspect where any call center could easily go for additional bandwidth whenever necessary.

It observed that the availability pattern of allowing blocks of 2MB only for upgrading infrastructure is not feasible and that the call centre players should be given a choice to take fractions of this depending on their need.

The association added that the anomaly of dual licensing resulted in duplication and time delays. CCAI also pointed out that since end-to-end connectivity is still not available in India, the model service level agreements could not be provided in the country which 'adversely affected our competitive edge.'

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