Call centres are recognised as a separate class of service providers falling under the category of 'Other Service Providers' and should be exempted from access deficit charges on traffic routed to them, according to Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd.
The Tata group-managed company, in its reply to a show-cause notice issued by department of telecommunications on April 4, said levying of ADC would hamper the prospects of BPO companies.
Call centres fall under OSP category and are governed by DoT guidelines and an imposition of ADC would hamper the growth of the emerging small sector BPO companies in the country, it said.
DoT had issued a show-cause notice to VSNL for allegedly routing international long distance calls through international private leased line circuits used by BPO units.
It also said that VSNL was trying to bypass ADC payment by converting ILD calls into data traffic meant for BPOs.
Quoting a recent amendment of BPO regulations, VSNL said global call centres, apart from using international private leased line circuits use technologies like ATMs and frame relay managed international networks, making it difficult for service providers to monitor bandwidth usage.
Call centres operate through dialing of a toll-free number by the customer in the US or other foreign countries, which is then routed to a call centre in India.
The carriage of the call from its pick-up point in the US or foreign country to the call centre in India is by means of various technologies and a variable charge IPLC mode is the best available option to charge start-ups and small companies, it said.
According to industry estimates, at present there are over 300 small and medium-sized BPO companies, employing over 20,000 personnel.
ADC is a charge levied by the government to primarily support its rural telephony development initiatives and is also offered to urban and semi-urban telephone lines of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.
Analysts said even though many Indian International long distance operators are providing variable charge IPLC, VSNL was only one to get communication from DoT.