New Delhi:-In a bid to resolve the interconnection dispute between Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and private telecom operators, the Department of Telecom has proposed to take a series of measures, including setting up a rural gateway exchange for interconnection with support from the Universal Service Obligation Fund.

BSNL and the private operators have been debating on the issue for sometime as to who will bear the cost of providing the connectivity.

In a meeting between the operators and DoT officials on Wednesday, it was also decided that the industry and BSNL would meet on third Wednesdays of every month to take stock of the progress on interconnection.

While private operators have been complaining that BSNL was not offering enough points of interconnection, the state- owned company has expressed its inability to fulfil the demands due to shortage of capacity and the costs involved especially in the rural areas. In order to expedite the process DoT also suggested that BSNL should make the status of the points of interconnection (POI) available on the Internet like it is done in the case of railway reservation. Feasibility of POI and demand notes thereof should be made available within 7 days of operator's request by BSNL.

It was also decided that a general manager level person in BSNL will be deputed only for interconnect-related issues.

Private operators have also been asked to nominate a POI officer, who will interact with BSNL POI officer (GM) on regular basis.

The measures are expected to improve rural connectivity and enable the Government to reach the target of 250 million phones by 2007.

Discussions on giving the forecasted yearly POI demand to BSNL by October 31, 2005 also came up at the meeting. BSNL insisted that full payment for the same should be made by private operators in advance. This was not agreed to by any of the operators.