TRAI Issues Consultation Paper On Review of Interconnection Usage Charges

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued the Consultation Paper on Review of Interconnection Usage Charges (IUC). TRAI has invited public views to review the January 1, 2020 deadline for service providers to end interconnect usage charges. Interconnection between two public telecommunication networks allows consumers of one service provider to communicate with consumers of the other service provider. Telecom operators with large number of subscribers tend to benefit from IUC as most of the calls are made within their network while net payout for service providers with lower subscriber base is higher.

From time to time, during the last two years, the Authority collected the data relating to inter-operator off-net traffic and technology-wise call volume handled, from operators. The analysis of this data indicates that while the adoption of new technologies by service providers and customers is progressing, a large number of customers are still served by circuit switched networks for handling of voice calls. Further, though the imbalance in the inter-operator off-net traffic is reducing over a period, it still exists.

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