Nasscom welcomes DoT’s decision on infrastructure sharing

At a recently-held seminar on mobile applications, Nasscom welcomed the decision by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to accept the recommendations of Nasscom and the joint (government-industry) standing committee to relax the existing conditions for sharing infrastructure between domestic and international call centres.

Said Kiran Karnik, President of Nasscom, “The Indian BPO industry has registered phenomenal growth over the last few years. This decision by DoT will now enable the industry to accelerate its growth in the domestic market even as it enhances its cost-effectiveness in the global marketplace. While welcoming this decision by DoT, we also appreciate the new joint mechanism that has been created to ensure a conducive telecommunications environment.”

As a result of the relaxation, any BPO company with more than 50 seats is now allowed to use its infrastructure for both domestic and international call centre operations, thereby fully utilising its investments. Companies that were using their facilities only or primarily in the night shifts to service overseas customers can now use the same facilities in the day to serve the domestic market. This change in regulations is of special significance to small companies and captive units. Many are hopeful that this announcement will encourage BPO companies to upscale their existing operations and drive further investments into the country.

Two other major changes that DoT has brought about through the present amendment (which will benefit operations within the industry) are removing turnover restrictions and allowing companies to choose either separate and independent EPABX or logically-partitioned EPABX.