Supreme Court upholds TDSAT order classifying Tata Tele's Walky, Reliance Communication's services as 'limited mobile'

The Supreme Court has held Tata Teleservices 'Walky' and Reliance Communication's 'Unlimited Cordless' as limited mobile phones, making them liable to pay access deficit charge to BSNL for interconnection.

Wile dismissing Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communication's petitions, a bench headed by Justice H S Kapadia upheld telecom tribunal TDSAT's order of September 2005 that held these services are not fixed lines telephones, but limited mobile.

Tata Teleservices will now have to pay ariund Rs300 crore as levy to BSNL on account of ADC, while Reliance will be required to pay Rs400 crore

The court had earlier reserved judgement on the petition filed by Tata Teleservices challenging the telecom tribunal's order classifying its fixed wireless phone service 'Walky' as limited mobile.

The apex court had also reserved Reliance Communication's plea challenging Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal's (TDSAT) order holding its fixed wireless telephone as equivalent to mobile service and thus liable to pay over Rs 400 crore as ADC charges.

In September 2005 the tribunal rejected the Tata Teleservices's petition and held that 'Walky' was actually a WLL (M) service, with limited mobility, and not a fixed telephone service, contrary to the licence granted to the company. Therefore, the  service offered by Tata Teleservices was a mobile service and liable to pay ADC to state-owned BSNL as per the interconnect order of telecom regulator TRAI.