The Department of Telecom has sought a review of the Wimax franchisee agreements inked by BSNL with private companies.
It has sent a letter to the BSNL board earlier this month, a DoT official said on the sidelines of the EliteX 2011 event in New Delhi.
He said the company has been given a month to respond.
The franchisee deals were inked in January 2009 with Noida-based Teracom Ltd, backed by Cisco Systems for Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Bihar and with Chennai-based Take Solutions, partnering with Chinese equipment vendor ZTE for Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (West) and Orissa.
In addition, Adishwar India, in partnership with Alvarion got Kolkata and Madhya Pradesh while Ampoules and Auto got Chennai, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.
The deals had come under review due to the unknown nature of some of the companies.
It has also been criticized that BSNL’s profits from the Wimax services — to be set up and operated by the franchisees — would be limited to a fraction of their revenues.
Spectrum, however, would be supplied by BSNL itself.