TRAI To Soon Complete Review Of Interconnection Usage Charges
The issue of IUC has been a bone of contention between incumbents and Reliance Jio.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) plans to soon conclude its review of interconnection usage charges (IUC), Chairman RS Sharma said after holding an open-house on Thursday.
The issue of IUC has been a bone of contention between incumbents such as Bharti Airtel Ltd., Idea Cellular Ltd., and Vodafone India on one side, and new entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. on the other.
The incumbents have pressed a demand for IUC to be raised to 30-40 paise per minute from 14 paise per minute presently, even as Reliance Jio has asked for the same to be brought down to zero.
Reliance Jio, which offers free calls to its users, has been pushing for IUC to be brought down to zero, while the incumbents that have suffered due to the Mukesh Ambani-promoted company’s doles have been asking for it to be raised. Raising IUC may force Reliance Jio to scrap the free calls it offers to its users.
TRAI had slashed IUC to 14 paise a minute in 2015 from 20 paise per minute, while expressing its intent to bring the same down to zero.
The regulator will on Friday hold a separate meeting with operators and other stakeholders following a plea from the incumbents to fix a floor price on data and voice services, said Sharma.
Operators had on June 15 sought a floor price on data and voice services in the aftermath of Reliance Jio offering free voice calls. The incumbents had said the move from Reliance Jio had severely choked their margins, as most others also were forced to come out with similar offers.
Incumbent telecom service providers have raised their concerns about Reliance Jio’s “predatory” pricing to the Ministry of Telecommunications, TRAI, and the Ministry of Finance, after a report by the Reserve Bank of India had warned that several loans disbursed to telecom companies were at a risk of turning into non-performing assets.
Lobby group Cellular Operators Association of India termed TRAI’s review of the policy as one done in “haste”, with Director General Rajan Mathews saying the operators needed details of the methodology followed while calculating IUC, and around four weeks to study the same.
Many of the participants have highlighted the fact that the model that is used, in terms of being transparent, needs to be disclosed…the models has assumptions built into it, and errors can creep in.Rajan Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India