The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that the fixed wireless phone services of Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) and RCom (formerly Reliance Infocom) as limited mobile phones, and as such they are liable to pay access deficit charges (ADC) to government-owned BSNL.

A bench headed by Justice H S Kapadia upheld the ruling of Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) and said the ‘Walky’ of Tata Teleservices and wireless telephone of Reliance Telecom are treated as mobile phones.

With the pronouncement of this order, both the companies would be paying ADC to the BSNL since they have been operating the limited wireless telephone services in the country. In September 2005, the Tata Teleservices and Reliance Infocom had challenged the TDSAT order that clarified that Tata’s ‘Walky’ and Reliance’s fixed wireless phones are limited mobile services.

Both service providers were asked to pay ADC to BSNL as per the order of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The ADC charges of both the service providers since 2004 would be in millions of rupees per annum for accessing the network of the government and it would be levied retrospectively.

The TDSAT had also directed the telecom service providers to increase the call tariff to Rs 2.10 for 3 minutes from Rs 1.20, the rate of fixed line telephones.