Vodafone India has restricted traffic between its own network and Loop Mobile due to non-payment of interconnect usage charges (IUC) by the latter.

Vodafone India has claimed that the IUC payments are overdue from Loop Mobile for a long time and as a result it has blocked incoming calls from the latter’s customers to its network in Mumbai.

As per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the interconnection involves linking network of a telecom operator to that of the other. Moreover, an operator is required to pay interconnection charges to the other operator, which receives and delivers the call on its network. The regulator has set IUC at Re 0.1 per minute.

At present, Loop Mobile is in the process of concluding the sale of its telecom business and infrastructure assets in the Mumbai circle to Bharti Airtel. As part of the Bharti Airtel-Loop Mobile deal announced in February 2014, Bharti Airtel would get access to latter’s more than three million subscribers, its retail outlets and 400-500 telecom towers. The deal is estimated to be worth about Rs 7 billion, which Loop Mobile’s promoters are likely to use to pay off its Rs 4 billion debt.

Vodafone India is Mumbai’s largest mobile phone operator by subscribers and India’s second largest. Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel is the country’s leading operator by subscriber base and revenue. However, it trails Vodafone India in Mumbai and hopes to go past the operator once it adds Loop Mobile’s subscriber to its fold.