The department of telecom has issued showcause notice to overseas telecom carriers AT&T and MCI Worldcom and network solutions company Equant for allegedly providing end-to-end managed data services without approval, while asking them to immediately stop the services.
These three companies were providing corporate networking (virtual private network) services without having proper licence under the Indian Telegraph Act, violating section 4 of the Act, sources said, adding these companies were not even having internet service provider's licence with them to offer any such service.
The DoT has asked them to stop the services in question and sought a reply in 15 days. The showcause notices were sent last week. When contacted, an MCI Worldcom official from Hong Kong told PTI they would not like to comment on the issue at this stage.
Equant did not respond to questions on the showcause notice, while AT&T denied that any such violation had taken place.
In a joint statement, AT&T and its Indian partner VSNL said, "AT&T does not agree that it has in any way violated the provisions of the Act in providing end-to-end managed data services to the customers and does not agree that such services are without the appropriate licence or authority from the Indian government.
"AT&T has filed an appropriate response with the DoT to bring out that the contents of the notice are not based on the complete set of facts. The Indian segment of these worldwide managed data services of AT&T are being provided by VSNL in India, with AT&T providing global network support and services," it said.