press trust of india
New Delhi, July 18: Incumbent operators — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular — Tuesday sought doubling of interconnection usage charge (IUC), a key input for mobile tariffs, saying that terminating incoming calls on their networks costs 30-35 paise per minute.
Any change in IUC has a direct impact on mobile call rates as it is part of telecom tariffs. The new entrant Reliance Jio, however, was against levying charge on incoming calls.
“Today all the major operators participated. Some operators were of the view that we should go to bill and keep, other asked for reducing it, some said keep it constant at current level. Some others said that it should be increased,” Trai Chairman RS Sharma told reporters after a meeting of telecom operators.
TRAI fixes IUC and the present IUC is 14 paise per minute on domestic incoming calls payable by the telecom operator receiving it. Sharma said there are other charges that are part of IUC but 14 paise charge for handling domestic calls dominated the discussion during the workshop because of the high volume of calls that are subjected to these charges.
He did not give any timeframe for firming up the IUC recommendations but said they will be finalised soon.
Meanwhile, TRAI has recommended 50 per cent reduction in one-time entry fee paid for captive VSAT services to Rs15 lakh from Rs30 lakh at present. The regulator also recommended removal of separate licence fee on companies interested in setting up second hub for captive VSAT services.
The Department of Telecom had sought the recommendations of Trai on minimum license fee in respect of second hub in captive VSAT CUG network and terms and conditions of captive VSAT CUG licence.
“Airtel has said their cost of carrying incoming call is 30 paise and hence IUC should be raised so that they are able to recover costs,” said an industry source who did not want to be identified.
