TRAI seeks cut in international, domestic leased lines

Mumbai: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has asked for a reduction in the rates of international and domestic leased line circuits in the country, so that they can be market driven, in line with the supply and demand. This was stated by Pradip Baijal, Chairman, TRAI, while speaking at Indian Merchants' Chamber's third seminar on Convergence Communications in Mumbai today.

"There should be a reduction in the prices of leased line circuits, proportional to the demand and supply of bandwidth in the country, other wise the regulator will have to take steps to reduce the charges,"he said..

The removal of the Access Deficit Charges (ADC) would take between another three and five years, said Baijal but the charges would be reduced further before being phased out. He said that a second consultation paper on ADC would be released in fortnight, followed by one on spectrum allocation in another 10-15 days, though he did not divulge details of what they would recommend.

After the opening of the telecom sector, Baijal stated, the tele density had grown 2.92 per cent last year, compared with the meagre increase by around 1.92 per cent in 1998 from 0.02 per cent in 1948. However, in rural areas the increase had not been up to expectations, so far, though it was expected to gain momentum due to the increased interest by FMCG majors such as soft drinks majors Pepsi and Coca-Cola, who are "increasingly" targeting these areas.

Unified licensing in the telecom sector, would enable the introduction of new technologies, which would help bring down cost to the customer, he said, without which telecom majors would be unwilling to bring in new technologies. "Unified License is also good to the industry, as it would help in achieving a "full play" of service like in the case of cable TV," he said.