A day before the expiry of telecom regulator Trai's directive, leading GSM players Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and BSNL are understood to have agreed to link with Reliance Communications' GSM network.

Sources said while BSNL has decided to allow RCOM's GSM services on the existing points of interconnections, Bharti and Vodafone Essar have agreed to open up their mobile switching codes to the Anil Ambani Group company.

"We are in consultation with Trai and a final decision will be taken on Thursday," a spokesperson of Bharti Airtel said. Earlier in the day, five other operators - MTNL, Aircel, Tata Communications, Spice and Idea Cellular - have agreed to open their networks to RCOM. This development comes a day before Trai's deadline to operators to give interconnections to RCOM or face penalty.

With these latest developments, COAI, the GSM operators body which was planning to challenge Trai's directive on the interconnection in TDSAT, may not require to go to the tribunal as all the operators are learnt to have agreed to provide interconnections to RCOM.

COAI director general T V Ramachandran was unavailable for comments. The move would pave way for RCOM's smooth GSM network rollout as its subscribers would be able to connect with other mobile users.

On August 14, regulator Trai had asked GSM players Idea Cellular, BPL, Voadafone Essar and Bharti Airtel to interconnect with RCOM by August 21. It has also asked state-run BSNL to link up with RCOM. The GSM operators had earlier contested the claim by Reliance Communications to be provided interconnection for its GSM foray by reasoning that its GSM foray was part of a new licence and hence would require new negotiations.

But the regulator had refuted this by saying that RCOM's GSM foray was part of the UASL and hence does not require any new negotiations. The GSM operators had said that their present agreement is restricted to provide interconnection to RCOM's CDMA network.

Trai has cited it as a licensing condition for service providers to provide interconnection to other players, implying if a mobile operator does not give interconnection to another based on mutual commercial agreement, it is a violation of licence condition attracting penalty. Meanwhile, the Trai rejected any contention for renegotiation.

Source:indiatimes