IUC

The comments came a day after Reliance Jio announced that calls by its users to other networks in India will become free from Friday, as the Interconnect Usage Charges (IUC) regime ends

Company also announces new data plans offering 1-2 GB data at lower prices than competition

The telco has revoked interconnect usage charges following Trai's announcement earlier this month that the IUC termination for all domestic voice calls in the country would be extended by another year

The IUC must take into account all cost components including capex and spectrum charges borne by the operator

IUC extension is welcome, but Trai should take a holistic view

Incumbent operators fought a public battle against Reliance Jio for the extension of the regime

Mittal said he made a request, on behalf of the telecom industry, for Rs 37,000 crore goods and services tax (GST) refund

The charges were reduced to 6 paise with effect from October 1, 2017 from 14 paise charged earlier and it was to become nil from January 1, 2020.

Typically, a telecom operator pays for completing calls made by its subscribers to a rival network.

Trai had proposed to move from the current IUC regime to the BAK (bill and keep) regime where no operator will charge for mobile call transmission, from January 1, 2020

Analysts largely see this as a positive for the sector, saying it will allow Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea to increase their rates as well

The telco has announced three new plans that come bundled with the 6-paise-per-minute charge imposed on voice calls to other networks, so subscribers will not have pay anything additionally

Analysts feel most subscribers will view the compulsory IUC top-up voucher as an additional spend for no incremental value

This will effectively end one of Jio key disruptive strategies - free voice call

The IUC was originally proposed to be made nil from January 1, 2020. But Trai is now reviewing the timeline

Sharma also rejected the allegation of giving preference to only Internet protocol (IP) based networks