Debunking a government charge about forming a cartel, India's top three private telecom players - Bharti, Reliance Infocomm and Videsh Sanchar Nigam - said their demand for level-playing field should not be construed as opposition to new entrants.
In a letter sent to the government on Thursday -- a day after Communication Minister Dayanidhi Maran accused them of forming a cartel -- these operators asserted that "we in fact compete amongst us in the market place."
"We are deeply concerned by the media reports and would like to clarify that there is no cartelisation," they said in the letter addressed to Maran.
The minister had said, "These three players are trying to stop competition in the long distance services. By allowing more players STD and ISD rates can come down further.
"They have formed a cartel and I am agianst this," Maran had said.
The joint communication by Reliance Infocomm, AirTel and Tatas-owned VSNL says that their representations were restricted to the premise of level playing field and "no worse off for the existing operators, the principle well recognised and supported by the government in the past."
"Our concern is permitting entry of the new operators by which existing operators are discriminated vis-a-vis new operators," the letter said.
All the three players have different pricing models for both STD and ISD calls and offer the subscribers freedom to chose any one of them. In such a scenario there can be no caretlisation, they said.
The three players claim to have made an investment of over Rs 7,000 crore (RS 70 billion) in creating infrastructure, besides paying licence fee and bank guarantees of close to Rs 1,500 crore (Rs 15 billion).
Department of Telecom is likely to reduce licence fee, revenue share and roll out obligations for new players and this is being contested by the existing three operators, who have sought a compensation of over Rs 2,800 crore (Rs 28 billion) to create a level-playing field.
"We, the long distance operators, have a long term commitment and have made huge investments keeping in view the obligations as per the licence conditions," they said.
In the absence of an association of the long distance operators, the joint representation was made as the issues were common, the three players said.
"We once again reiterate our commitment towards the introduction of competition in telecom sector and would request the existing players should not be worse off as per the government policy and supported by you in the past," Bharti, Reliance Infocomm and VSNL said in the letter.