TRAI reduces international termination charge

Telecom regulator TRAI on Friday reduced the international termination charge (ITC) to 30 paise per minute from 53 paise, effective from February 1, 2018.

In industry parlance, ITC refers to "charges payable by an International Long Distance Operator (ILDO), which is carrying calls from outside the country, to the access provider in the country in whose network the call terminates".

"The authority has decided to revise the termination charge for international incoming call to wireline and wireless from Rs 0.53 per minute to Rs 0.30 per minute," TRAI said in a notification.

"The Authority is of the view that, with this revision, the arbitrage opportunity between ITC and domestic call tariffs would become so insignificant that illegal VOIP Gateway business in India would become unviable -- in turn, the grey market for ILD incoming traffic would eventually cease to exist."

--IANS

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