Vodafone India blocks Aircel SMSes for not paying fees

Vodafone has blocked all text mesages to Aircel's network over the issue relating to non-payment of termination charges.

A spokesperson from Aircel confirmed Vodafone's action to block SMS services between the two operators, according to The Times of India on Friday.

Its customers had also received messages from the operator stating "SMS to Vodafone and Airtel numbers has been blocked by Vodafone and Airtel", and that the company is trying to resolve the issue, noted the article.

Aircel customers are now cut off from SMS access to two telecom operators in the country. Bharti Airtel had closed its network to incoming text messages from subscribers of Aircel and Reliance Communications two weeks ago, after they started flooding its network with "free spam messages" and allegedly congesting its network.

While Airtel's bank was a blanket one over the entire country, Vodafone's ban only covers a few cities such as Chennai, New Delhi and Karnataka.

Termination charges are fees one operator has to pay to another when an SMS from its network goes over to another operator.

The dispute over termination charges has engulfed major telcos in the country, with multiple disputes before authorities yet to be resolved. the report noted.