DoT gives Virgin Mobile a clean chit, says not a MVNO (India)Virgin Mobile, for the second time has recieved a clean chit, saying it’s services which aren’t that of a MNVO, by the Department of Telecom (DoT), after keeping a track on it’s operations in India for last couple of months.
At beginning of 2008, both the DoT and regulator TRAI studied the Virgin’s working model minutely and endorsed the company’s claims of it being only a franchisee of Tata Teleservices.
The following clearance was based on the study of Virgin Mobile’s advertisements, SIM card, tariffs and services.
Whereas, the GSM operators of the country led by The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) alleged that the telco was offering full-range mobile services like a licence holder in violation of existing regulations and also said that its services in India are similar to those offered by Virgin as an MVNO in other countries like the UK and Australia.
The Tatas added that since there was no selling of bulk airtime, so the partnership cannot be classified as an MVNO. The DoT in an internal note dated August 21 has said that an MVNO would involve purchase of minutes from facility-based mobile network, freedom to prescribe tariff, customer ownership and separate licence, but the Tata-Virgin joint venture did not involve any of these factors.
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