TRAI announces new interconnect regime
New Delhi: In what could lead to yet another overhaul in local and long-distance tariffs across networks (landline, cellular and limited mobility), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has announced the revised Interconnection Usage Charge (IUC) regime to be enforced from December 1. Announcing the new access deficit, carriage and termination charges, Pradip Baijal, TRAI chairman, said the origination charges that had been specified in the earlier IUC regime has been dispensed with. He, however, refused to speculate on the tariff changes that would accrue because of this revision, as the operators are free to charge whatever they want in the face of increasing competition.

While access deficit charges (ADC) are levied to compensate the operators for subsidising their call charges the others - origination, carriage and termination charges - are the amounts that has to be paid by different operators for interconnecting their networks with each other. Baijal said only one type of ADC has been specified in place of the two that existed earlier. The revised estimate has lower total amount of access deficit, based on recent financial and traffic data and deduction of compensation and concessions given to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd by the Government. Access deficit estimate is being funded to the extent of Rs 5,340 crore instead of Rs 13,000 crore as estimated in the earlier IUC regime. Of this, while BSNL will get Rs 4,800 crore, MTNL and the other private operators will get Rs 500 crore, he said. "The ADC will be funded from all calls, except fixed-to-fixed local, and 0-50 km intra-circle calls, and intra-circle calls from cellular-to-cellular and WLL-to-WLL.

For all intra-circle calls subject to ADC, an amount of Rs 0.30 per minute is to be levied. For inter-circle calls, an ADC amount of Rs 0.30 per minute is to be levied for distance up to 50 km, Rs 0.50 for between 50-200 km and Rs 0.80 per minute for calls beyond 200 km," he said. ADC on international calls has been fixed at Rs 4.25 per minute but levied on all services to eliminate regulatory disadvantage to any service. Reduced ADC will also reduce the grey traffic. The authority will consider lowering this amount over time, he said. Under the new regime, carriage charges for long distances up to 50 km has been fixed at Rs 0.20 per minute, for between 50-200 km at Rs 0.65 per minute, for 200-500 km at Rs 0.90 per minute and for more than 500 km at Rs 1.10 per minute. The same termination charge (Rs 0.30 per minute) would have to be paid for all calls to access providers, namely fixed line, cellular mobile, WLL.

This will help simplify the IUC regime, facilitate and help its implementation and prevent disputes in reconciliation between operators. No origination charge is specified. Thus, origination amount will be residual from tariff after payment of carriage and termination charge, plus the ADC amount. For calls originating from fixed line, the originating network will be allowed to collect the ADC amount. For calls originating in non-fixed line and terminating in fixed network, the terminating network will have to be paid the ADC amount, Baijal said. Basic e operators other than BSNL will also get ADC funding this year but on a lower scale.
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