COAI seek IUC paper deadline extension by 2 months from Trai

The Cellular Operators Association of India, which had criticised the regulator's move to review the inter-connection usage charge, has urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to extend deadline for submission of comments on the contentious consultation paper by more than two months, citing operators' preoccupation with the upcoming auction.

"We have sought additional time of over two months' from the day spectrum auction concludes. This additional time will allow us to give a thorough and holistic response on the IUC (inter-connection usage charge) paper," the COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews told PTI.

The association has written to the regulator in this regard, he added.

Mathews said the COAI has sought the extension as the same team within telecom companies (operators) which are going to be involved in the spectrum bidding will also be involved in the IUC paper.

"After the auction, the festive season will kick in and some people may be away. So, we are saying that given that the IUC issue is contentious and the fact that Reliance Jio has also entered the market, the mobile operators want more time for a thorough analysis before submitting their views," he said.

The Trai has already extended the deadline by three weeks for receiving industry's comments on the IUC discussion paper - thus pushing back the previous timeline for the review process.

The Trai, which is in the midst of reviewing the IUC — paid by one telecom operator to another for connecting phone calls — had originally sought public comments on its discussion paper by September 5 and counter-comments by September 19.

The Trai had then extended the deadline for submission of written comments to September 26 and for counter-comments to October 10.

The discussion paper had kicked up a storm, with incumbent operators under the aegis of the cellular association accusing the sectoral regulator of favouring new entrants with its policies.

The cellular body had earlier termed the regulator's consultation on call connect charges as unfair on incumbent operators and had alleged that the Trai's discussion paper was an indicator of bias creeping in.

The COAI had also questioned the regulator's urgency in initiating the process of inter-connect review and had approached the telecom department to express its concern over the issue.

A mobile operator levies the IUC for each incoming call it gets from subscriber of another network and the mobile to mobile termination charge is currently pegged at 14 paise per minute. These rates will undergo a relook as part of the IUC consultation process.

However, the top three operators — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea — which are engaged in a bitter inter-connect fight with the new entrant Reliance Jio, have been claiming that the real cost of termination is significantly higher than the current inter-connect settlement charge of 14 paise prescribed in the present IUC regime.

The incumbent players, in their tussle with the new entrant, have in fact claimed that they are incurring increasing costs due to high level of asymmetric traffic coming in from the Jio network.