The Sunil Mittal promoted Bharti Airtel is facing a DoT block on its way to complete the deal with Loop Mobile to acquire its mobile subscribers and telecom sites in Mumbai.
A director with Department of Telecom feels Loop is not offering MNP (mobile number portability) options to its 3 million mobile subscribers in Mumbai by deciding to sell its customers to Airtel. Eventually, this will be a revenue loss to the BJP Government at the center – led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
ALSO READ: Airtel signs definitive agreement with Loop Mobile for Mumbai telecom circle
If Loop allowed its Mumbai customers to opt for MNP, subscribers would have paid Rs 19 per line for changing the telecom service provider and 1 percent of Rs 19 would have gone to the government kitty. Also, MNP would have competitors of Airtel including Idea Cellular, Tata Docomo, Vodafone, Reliance Communications, etc. would have benefitted.
Interestingly, the benefit through MNP transaction to the government would be just Rs 5.70 lakh (1 percent of Rs 19 from 3 million users).
A report in Economic Times says the slump deal between Airtel and Loop Mobile is allowed as per the telecom license conditions. However, DoT director raised an objection.
The deal created lack of opportunities to Mumbai telecom users to opt for an MNP, lack of funds to government kitty and competition will not get a chance to prove their capabilities to acquire Loop users through MNP are the main highlights of the deal.
DoT observation is happening after Bharti Airtel announcing its definitive agreement with Loop Mobile on 23 July, 2014. As per the deal, Loop will sell 3 million mobile users and telecom sites in Mumbai to Bharti Airtel. Incidentally, the 3 million users are already served by Airtel. The deal would have made Airtel the number mobile operator in Mumbai with 7 million users, ahead of Vodafone.
Bharti Airtel made the first announcement about Loop in February, 2014.
Loop Mobile’s 2G-enabled network supported by 2,500 plus cell sites is also part of Airtel’s network which has over 4,000 cell sites at present.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com