Three ISPs penalised for illegal Net telephony

DoT has imposed penalty of ₹4.71 crore on three ISPs -- Dishnet DSL, Spectranet and Primus Telecom for abetting illegal Net telephony.

With an aim to curb the menace of grey Internet telephony market, Department of Telecom has imposed penalty of ₹4.71 crore on three ISPs -- Dishnet DSL, Spectranet and Primus Telecommunications for abetting illegal international call rackets.

DoT has decided to recover the revenue losses by imposing penalty against the erring ISPs whose Internet leased lines were found being misused and consequent to this a penalty of ₹2.28 crore has been imposed on Dishnet DSL while Spectranet has been fined at ₹2.34 crore, an official statement said on Thursday.

DoT has imposed a penalty of ₹9 lakh on Primus Telecommunications.

The statement said that other defaulting ISPs would face similar action by DoT and added there is detailed instruction to the ISPs to carry out regular inspection to check misuse of their Internet leased lines.

The department's ISP licence agreement without Internet telephony prohibits telephony on Internet. DoT's ISP licence agreement that permits Internet telephony, prohibits origination and termination of a call from any PSTN number within the country.