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HOSTED CONTACT / CALL
CENTER SERVICES
in Indian
Telecommunications
Licensing and Regulation
By
Harish Kumar Gangwar
Disclaimer: I hereby declare that the views expressed in this
article / publications are my own and not of the Government of
India.
(C) All copyrights are reserved with Harish Kumar R/o Gangwar
Colony, Nawabganj , Bareilly , Uttar Pradesh India.
Email id. harish_gang@yahoo.com
Page 2 of 17
CONTENTS
Page
No.
Background on Telecom Circles and OSP Registration ………………………………………
3
Telecom Resource requirement of OSP ………………………………………………………..
3
Brief on scope of services under various Telecom Licenses ………………………………….
4
Concept of Hosted Contact Centre / Virtual Call Centre ………………………………………
4
Who are the Target Customers? …………………………………………………………………
5
Benefits due to Hosted Contact Centre ………………………………………………………..
5
Why the Indian OSPs are opting of Hosted Contact Centre …………………………………
6
Hosted Contact Centre Services in India ………………………………………………………..
7
Arrangement between OSP, UAS provider, NLD in absence of Hosted Contact Centre ….
9
Salient Licensing points in “Hosted Contact Centre Solution” ………………………………...
10
Where the ‘Hosted Contact Centre’ fits in to the Indian Licensing Framework
10
International Scenario on ‘Hosted Contact Centre’ ……………………………………………
11
Requirement of new license or amendments in existing license to in view of ‘Hosted
Contact Centre Services'(HCCS) ………………………………………………………………
11
HCCS under UAS License and OSP (Domestic-HCC) ………………………………………
12
HCCS under NLD License and OSP (Domestic-HCC) ………………………………………
14
HCCS under ILD license and OSP (International HCC) ………………………………………
16
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Background on Telecom Circles and OSP Registration
The Republic of India is divided in to 22 Circles based on telecom services
(see annexure-1). The Access Service Provider (UAS) License is granted based on
these telecom circles. The National Long Distance (NLD) and International Long
Distance (ILD) Licenses are issued on all India basis. The Internet Service Provider
License are granted not only on the basis of All India, Circle Level but also based on
the City location.
In India it is mandatory for the companies to register its ‘Infrastructure
Location’ which are proposed to be used for providing any Telecom Resource based
Applications Services like Domestic Call Centers, International Cell Centers,
Knowledge Process Outsourcing, Business Process Outsourcing, Network Operation
Centers, Vehicle Tracking Systems tele-banking, tele-medicine, tele-education, tele-
trading, e-commerce, and other IT Enabled Services under the OSP (Other Service
Provider) Category. The telecom resources are the telecom facilities being provided
by any telecom service providers who is granted license under section 4 of Indian
Telegraph Act. The OSPs who provides the services within National boundary are
termed as Domestic OSP and who provides beyond National Boundary are termed
as International OSP.
Telecom Resource requirement of OSP
As the OSP’s main business depends on the Telecom Facilities so there is
always a competition among the telecom service providers to provide the better
infrastructure, network and services to them. Normally the telecom service provider
provides the following broad telecom facilities to OSPs:
1. Telephone Connectivity : ISDN PRI, Fixed Telephones services, Mobile
services (GSM/CDMA) by UAS providers
2. Internet Bandwidth : Internet Lease Lines, Broadband, Dial up etc.,
3. Point to Point Domestic Lease Lines: point to point domestic connectivity
using National MPLS network, SDH network, Service provider based VPN
, VSAT etc. by NLD & UAS Providers
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4. Point to Point international Lease Lines: point to point international
connectivity using MPLS services, IPLC provided by ILD providers.
Brief on scope of services under various Telecom Licenses
The basic arrangement as envisaged in the various license issued by the DOT are
as follows:-
1. It is defined in the scope of the NLD License that NLD Service Licensee will
have a right to carry inter circle traffic. Hence the UASL/ Access / basic
Service provider will handover the inter circle traffic to the NLD service
providers.
2. Further, NLD Service Providers can access the subscribers directly only
for provision of Leased Circuits/Close User Groups (CUGs). It means that
the NLD service providers cannot handover the Public PSTN /.PLMN traffic
directly to any customers. The NLD service providers can only takeover and
handover the public PSTN / PLMN traffic from and between the Access Service
providers.
3. The Access Service Providers are entrusted with responsibility to cover
collection, carriage, transmission and delivery of voice and/or non-voice
messages over their network in the designated SERVICE AREA and
includes provision of all types of access services. Further, they can also provide
Voice Mail, Audiotex services, Video Conferencing, Videotex, E-Mail , Closed
User Group (CUG) as Value Added Services over its network to the subscribers
falling within its SERVICE AREA on non-discriminatory basis.
4. The internet telephony is permitted in the ITSP License with restrictions.
Concept of Hosted Contact Centre / Virtual Call Centre
Hosted Contact Centre or Virtual Call Centre may be defined as the state of
art telecom facilities where the following services are available on demand at any
time using a single platform with minimal costs to the user: -
a. Inbound Call Centre
b. Outbound Call Centre
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c. IVR( Interactive Voice Response) system
d. Auto Dialer , Predictive dialers
e. Network Routing Services like intelligent call routing , distribution and
queuing
f. Do Not Call List Management
g. Call Recording
h. Multimedia Services, Email , Chat services
i. Network Management and Reporting services
j. Agent Reports, Lead management, Campaign Results etc.
Who are the Target Customers?
In India the target customers for above solutions are:
i. Domestic Call Centre – Inbound and outbound
ii. Business Process Outsourcing Units
iii. Enterprises including telecom providers, bank and financial institutions,
insurance companies, DTH providers, electronic appliance companies etc.
iv. International Call Centers - They are primarily target customers of ILD service
providers for the other customized telecom facilities other then IPLC,
MPLS VPN.
Benefits due to Hosted Contact Centre
The customers are attracted to opt for such solution mainly due to:
1. Cost saving - no need to own or purchase the costly ACD, IVRS, Dialer, Data
Servers , software license etc.
2. Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) Applications & CRM connectivity
3. Hassle free Operation & control– All network equipment for processing of
voice calls , agents routing, campaign, lead management , skill based routing
etc. are maintained and handled by specialized manpower at a single point.
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4. On demand Scalable Solution – based on the agents requirements, customer
base , product reach etc. new OSP , agent seats , data centers etc. may be
added or reduced.
5. One stop solution – Along with the HCC network the Bandwidth is too
managed and provided by the service provider.
6. Quality of Service – High end solutions with next generation features are
implemented at the site.
7. State of Art Equipment with latest Technology
8. Dedicated 24x7x 365 customer support
Why the Indian OSPs are opting of Hosted Contact Centre
As the companies registered under the OSP are having a large variation in the net
worth and the companies opted for the telecom solutions as per their operational
needs. It is observed that the sometime it is very tough for startups to setup the basic
infrastructure like Dialer, ACD, and IVRS etc. at their location and sometime the
company want to start their service immediately without taking any pain for
bandwidth or other telecom resource provisioning. These are main reasons why the
Indian OSPs are attracting towards the Hosted Contact Centre.
In India some of the NLD providers namely M/s TCL has started providing the
Hosted Contact Centre Solution or Virtual Call Centre to the OSPs. Their Hosted
Contact Center is comprised of the following network elements:-
a. IVR( Interactive Voice Response System)
b. ACD( Automatic Call Distributor)
c. VoIP Connection Server (VCS) having capability to
interoperable with other VOIP gateways and work with all
standard H.323 and SIP protocols.
d. Outbound dialer and other network elements etc.
e. Monitoring, Reporting servers.
Hosted Contact Centre Services in India
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As whole India is divided in the 22 telecom circles so there is always a
challenge for the Unified Access Provider to offer such services as their licensing
area is confined to only one circle whereas the OSP and customers may be located
anywhere in India.
Hence most of the telecom providers have offered these services through
NLD network. We may understand the present relation between the Hosted Contact
Centre, UAS , NLD provider, OSP and customer with following examples:
Let say a company ‘ABC’ is operating at all major cities in India and is in retail
garment business. The company ‘ABC’ intends to outsource the ‘customer handling
services’ to OSP ‘LMN’ in Telecom Circle ‘PQ’. The company has also outsourced
the telemarketing campaign to the OSP for making new. The OSP and company
‘ABC’ have opted for the Hosted Contact Centre solution provided by NLD Provider
in Telecom Circle ‘RS’. In that case the OSP would take the PRI lines from UAS
Provider ‘XYZ’ so that the outbound customer care calls/toll free calls may be made.
For handling the inbound calls the OSP and UAS provider are connected to the
Hosted Contact Centre at Telecom Circle ‘RS’ through lease circuits or thorough
NLD’s MPLS VPN network. The company ‘ABC’ is also connected to the Hosted
Contact Centre for interconnecting its Data Servers for management of customers’
profile. UAS provider delivers all traffic terminated to company ‘ABC’ toll free /
customer care number to the hosted contact centre for further routing. All agent of
the OSP ‘LMN’ are authenticated and logged through the hosted contact centre for
customer call management. The OSP agent receives the calls through Hosted
Contact Centre where the voice loggers, call routing, call management etc. are
hosted. The OSP Agent access the company ‘ABC’ database through the hosted
contact center for any creations , updation or retrieval of customers profile
information. It is the responsibility of the Hosted Contact Centre to take care of call
distribution and generate various MIS reports. The diagram for above arrangement is
as below:
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One of the solutions is being provided by M/s Tata Telecommunications Ltd.
(http://www.tatacommunications.com/enterprise/contactcenter/hcc.asp) under their
NLD license operations using the instaCC platform provided by CosmoCall Universe
(www.cosmocall.com). InstaCC is an on-demand Contact Centre solution having
multi-tenant capability providing all sort of services like Call routing, IVR, Predictive
Dialling, reporting etc as required for an OSP Company.
Similarly M/s Bharti Airtel Limited is also offering hosted contact centre services to
their customers. (http://www.airtel.in/hostedcontactcenter)
Arrangement between OSP, UAS provider, NLD in absence of Hosted Contact
Centre
In case if the OSP want to provide the customer care services to their Client without
using the ‘Hosted Contact Centre’ Solution of the NLD provider then the following
technical arrangements and telecom resources may be required by the OSP :
1. UAS providers may deliver the clients’s / customer care traffic terminating to
the PRI/PSTN/PLMN to OSP through an extended lease circuit as a last mile
access up / wireless access up to OSP location from their MSC/TDM Switch.
2. The IVRS, ACD and PABX (TDM / IP) on need basis to handle the incoming
and outgoing calls will be located in the premises of the OSP.
3. OSP locations are interconnected over private lease circuits provided by UAS
/ NLD providers, to the Data Centre of their clients.
4. For interconnecting the voice traffic from Telecom Service Area’s other then
where OSP is located. , the IVRS system must be deployed at the other
telecom service area’s MSCs and then the traffic on call maturity i.e. on
answer by IVRS would be carried through a Lease circuit provided by the NLD
service provider.
5. The outbound call can only be made by the agents of the OSP using the PRI
/ PLMN in their office extended from the MSC of Access Service Provider
(UAS) in their Telecom Service Area. The MSCs located in other telecom
service area shall not be used by OSP for making any outbound calls.
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Salient Licensing points in “Hosted Contact Centre Solution”
The salient points about the Hosted Contact Centre / Virtual Call Centre solution
being provided by NLD providers are as follows:
1. It involves more than one telecom circles due to varying locations of the
customers, OSP and UAS providers.
2. The “Hosted Contact Centre Solution” is a mixed service where the MPLS
circuits towards the Client, OSP site and Access Service provider site can
only be provided by the NLD service providers.
3. The voice call between the OSP Agent and customers reaching through toll
free number / customer care number is a PSTN/PLMN switching which can
only be provided by the UAS providers and if the customer call is from a
different telecom circle then NLD provider will also carry the call in-between.
4. The outbound calls from a ‘Hosted Contact Centre’ may lead to bypass of
NLD so outbound call may be done only through UAS providers in the
telecom circle.
5. The Hosted Contact Centre may also involve the ILD license if the objective of
the solution is to provide the Hosted Call Centre services to the OSPs.
Where the ‘Hosted Contact Centre’ fits in to the Indian Licensing Framework
The ‘Hosted Contact Centre’ is telecom resource based value added application
service for Call Centres and other Customers where a single telecom application
based platform is shared among more than one customer on lease basis.
The ‘Hosted Contact Centre’ or ‘Virtual Call Centre’ is currently not covered under
the scope of services in any DOT license/ regulations including UAS License and
NLD license and under any registration / NOC permission.
Prima facie it seems that it may fall under the OSP registration category. The
‘Hosted Call Centre’ have the all network infrastructure required for a call centre so it
may be assumed as a Universal Call Centre offering Services to other Call Centres.
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But The ‘Hosted Call Centre’ cannot be covered under the OSP category due to the
inherent nature of the business i.e. sub-leasing of HCC platform to the other OSPs
and customers. Further as the Hosted Contact Centre involves the interconnection
with the PSTN / PLMN network and NLD network etc. Where the tenant or the
Hosted Contact Centre Users will access these telecom resources on some
consideration and not on a ‘pass-through’ model. Thus it would be a resale of
telecom resources which is not permitted in the UAS/CMTS license or NLD License
and government would be deprived of its legitimate share on the revenue earned.
International Scenario on ‘Hosted Contact Centre’
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) started issuing
three types of call centre licenses like Call Center (CC), Hosted Call Center (HCC)
and Hosted Call Center Service Provider (HCCSP) in April 2008. Initially a License
fee of Taka 5000 is payable for each category of Call Center service License as
onetime fee for initial term of 5 years. After that after first 3 years for Call Centre
operating in Dhaka and Chittagong Metropolitan areas and after first 5 (five) years
for the rest of the country, 0.5% of its gross revenue earning will be charged as the
License Fee on yearly basis. The validity of the license shall be for 5 (five) years.
Upon expiry of 5 (five) years, the license may be renewed for subsequent terms,
each of 5 (five) years in duration. (http://www.btrc.gov.bd)
Requirement of new license or amendments in existing license to in view of
‘Hosted Contact Centre Services’ (HCCS)
The hosted Contact Centre Solution is the example of the “Telecom Application
Service Based Operator”. This solution involves more than one license and also the
way solution is implemented is more prone to violate the fundamental telecom plan
and bypass of NLD services. Looking in to demography of the India and the concept
of telecom circles, the Hosted Contact Centre Service’ (HCCS) may added in to the
NLD license for the purpose of extending call centre services to Domestic OSP.
Similarly for the International OSP, the ‘Hosted Contact Centre Services’ may be
added in to the ILD license. But as the Access Services in India are covered under
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the UAS/CMTS licenses whose scope is limited to one circle , the ‘Hosted Contact
Centre Services’ may also be added to this. But in any license you add the ‘Hosted
Contact Centre Services’ there will always be RESTRICTION on its implementation
so that the possible infringement of other licensees or stake holders may be avoided.
Once the HCCS is added into the scope of existing license UAS , NLD and ILD
license, the OSP registration terms and condition may also be modified to add two
new category of OSP i.e. ‘Domestic-HCC’ and ‘International-HCC’.
In my opinion the Hosted Contact Centre Services may be incorporated in the scope
of services of licenses as tabulated and explained below:
Sl.
No.
Name of License
Target Customer
Scope of Area
1
Unified Access Service
Domestic OSP
Telecom Circle
2
National Long Distance
Domestic OSP
All India
3
International Long Distance
International OSP
All India
HCCS under UAS License and OSP (Domestic-HCC)
1. The HCCS shall only be provided to the OSPs who got registration under the
Domestic HCC category and are operating in his telecom circles. So the UAS
Provider will only sale and provision the hosted contact centre services in their
native circle only.
2. Domestic HCC and HCCS Provider i.e. UAS will connect through the point to
point Lease Circuit. The point to point connectivity may also be provisioned
through MPLS network.
3. HCCS Provider may also connect with the Data Server of a clients (OSP’s
Client) based on the requirement of the OSP (Domestic-HCC).
4. For the purpose of point to point lease line the UAS provider may use his own
infrastructure within his telecom circles but for the inter-circle carriage it has to
be provisioned by the NLD Service provider.
5. The Agents of the OSP (Domestic-HCC) shall be permitted to make the
incoming and outgoing calls only using the exclusive telecom resources
provided and extended by their UAS Provider.
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6. The agents of the OSP (Domestic-HCC) shall be permitted to access the
internet services through the UAS Provider.
7. In no circumstances the OSP (Domestic-HCC) shall be permitted to directly
use the Access telecom resources (PSTN / PLMN / PRI / BRI etc.) of circles
other than his home circle.
8. The voice calls between the agents of one OSP (Domestic HCC) location to
other OSPs location shall be prohibited. However the inter-group calls
between agents of an OSP (Domestic HCC) shall be permitted.
9. Any component, subcomponent, gateway or any interface of the IP-PBX will
not be assigned any public IP. The reach ability of SIP Server and any of its
Interfaces through the internet Cloud is prohibited.
10. The SIP clients will not be assigned any numbering scheme similar to the
E.164 numbering scheme.
11. The facilities from the “Hosted Contact Centre” solution can only be provided
to the OSPs and the clients having the agreement with the OSP for providing
application services using this “hosted contact centre” solution platform.
12. The license fees shall be payable on all components of the total bill / invoice
raised by the HCCS Provider to the OSP (Domestic HCC) without any pass
through.
13. Ideally at Domestic-HCC there will be a LAN Network where all agents will
access the voice and data services through HCCSP using CTI platform or
other platform.
Hosted Contact Centre Service
Provider Services
(UAS Licensee)
Location Circle ‘A’
OSP (Domestic-
HCC)
Location Circle ‘A’
OSP (Domestic-
HCC)
Location Circle ‘A’
Page 14 of 17
HCCS under NLD License and OSP (Domestic-HCC)
1. The HCCS shall only be provided to the OSPs who got registration under the
Domestic HCC category.
2. Domestic HCC and HCCS Provider i.e. NLD will connect through the point to
point Lease Circuit. The point to point connectivity may also be provisioned
through MPLS network.
3. HCCS Provider may also connect with the Data Server of a clients (OSP’s
Client) based on the requirement of the OSP (Domestic-HCC).
4. The NLD Provider may carry the traffic to HCCSP location from the
UAS/CMTS provider only after the termination & answer of the voice call in
respective terminating circle to which the ‘called number / customer care
number/PRI mapped to toll free number’ pertains. The HCCS Provider shall
be permitted to carry the voice traffic after this to their Hosted Contact Centre
solution on private lease circuits.
5. Once the call is entered in the network of “Hosted Contact Centre Solution”,
it will not be permitted to handover or switched to any other telecom service
provider. It means that the call will be handled and switched only within the
‘Hosted Contact Centre Service provider’s private network.
6. The HCCS Provider shall be permitted to handover the above traffic to only
OSPs (Category Domestic-HCC) located anywhere in India using private
lease circuits.
7. The Agents of the OSP (Domestic-HCC) shall be permitted to make the
outgoing calls only using the telecom resources provided and extended by
their UAS/CMTS Provider from their home circle to the HCCS Provider
location. For this effect the authorized UAS/CMTS Provider will enter in to an
agreement with the HCCS provider for such extended connectivity.
8. In no circumstances the OSP (Domestic-HCC) shall be permitted to directly
use the Access telecom resources (PSTN / PLMN / PRI / BRI etc.) of circles
other than his home circle.
9. HCCS Provider may make separate provisioning of the Internet Services to
the OSP (Domestic-HCC) from the authorized Internet Service Provider
having jurisdiction at OSP’s Location through private lease circuit. For this
effect the authorized Internet Service Provider will enter in to an agreement
with the HCCS provider for such extended connectivity.
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10. The voice calls between the agents of one OSP (Domestic HCC) location to
other OSPs location shall be prohibited. However the inter-group calls
between agents of an OSP(Domestic HCC) shall be permitted.
11. Any component, subcomponent, gateway or any interface of the IP-PBX will
not be assigned any public IP. The reach ability of SIP Server and any of its
Interfaces through the internet Cloud is prohibited.
12. The SIP clients will not be assigned any numbering scheme similar to the
E.164 numbering scheme.
13. The facilities from the “Hosted Contact Centre” solution can only be provided
to the OSPs and the clients having the agreement with the OSP for providing
application services using this “hosted contact centre” solution platform.
14. The license fees shall be payable on all components of the total bill / invoice
raised by the HCCS Provider to the OSP (Domestic HCC) without any pass
through.
15. Ideally at Domestic-HCC there will be a LAN Network where all agents will
access the voice and data services through HCCSP using CTI platform or
other platform.
Basic Diagram for Interconnection of HCCSP, OSP (Domestic-HCC) and other Telecom Licensee
HCCS under ILD license and OSP (International HCC)
Hosted Contact Service
Provider (NLD)
Location Circle ‘A’
OSP (Domestic-HCC)
Location Circle ‘B’
PSTN / PLMN network
connectivity with Access
Service Provider subject to
the conditions as per the
OSP location
Data Centre
of Client
Internet connectivity with Internet Service Provider
from any location subject to that the ISP shall have
jurisdiction in Circle ‘B’
OSP (Domestic-HCC)
Location Circle ‘C’
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1. The HCCS shall only be provided to the OSPs who got registration under the
International HCC category.
2. International-HCC and HCCS Provider i.e. ILD will connect through the point
to point Private Lease Circuit. The point to point connectivity may also be
provisioned through ILD Service Provider based International VPN.
3. HCCS Provider may also connect with the Data Server of clients (OSP’s
Client) at foreign end using International Point to Point Private Lease Circuit
based on the requirement of the OSP (International-HCC).
4. HCCS Provider may also interconnect using International Point to Point
Private Lease (IPLC) Circuit with foreign telecom network through foreign
client’s POP.
5. HCC Infrastructure at ILD provider’s location will not interconnect with any
local PSTN/PLMN network, Data Connectivity, Internet Connectivity other
then the lease circuit between HCCS Provider and OSP (international HCC).
6. Both International Inbound and Outbound calls are permitted through HCCS
Provider for the call centre purpose of OSP (International HCC).
7. The HCCS Provider shall be permitted to handover the voice and data traffic
to only OSPs (Category International HCC) located anywhere in India only
using private lease circuits.
8. The access of Internet Services through foreign client’s POP is not permitted
through the HCCS Provider. HCCS Provider may make separate provisioning
of the Internet Services to the OSP (International HCC) from the authorized
Internet Service Provider having jurisdiction at OSP’s Location through private
lease circuit.
9. There will total isolation of the domestic telecom resources of UAS/CMTS
provider from the HCC network of OSP (International HCC).
10. The voice calls between the agents of one OSP (International HCC) location
to other OSPs shall be prohibited. The inter-group calls between agents of an
OSP (International HCC) shall be permitted.
11. Any component, subcomponent, gateway or any interface of the IP-PBX will
not be assigned any public IP. The reach ability of SIP Server and any of its
Interfaces through the internet Cloud is prohibited.
12. The SIP clients will not be assigned any numbering scheme similar to the
E.164 numbering scheme.
Page 17 of 17
13. The license fees shall be payable on all components of the total bill / invoice
raised by the HCCS Provider to the OSP (International HCC) without any
pass through.
Disclaimer: I hereby declare that the views expressed in this article / publications are my own and not
of the Government of India.
(C) All copyrights are reserved with Harish Kumar R/o Gangwar Colony, Nawabganj , Bareilly , Uttar
Pradesh India.
Email id. Harish_gang@yahoo.com
OSP (International-HCC)
Location Circle ‘B’
Hosted Contact Service
Provider (ILD)
Foreign PSTN /
PLMN
interconnection
for voice
purpose only
Foreign
Client Data
Centre