The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has announced revised domestic termination charge (mobile termination charges and fixed termination charges) and international terminal charges – a move that is expected to help lower call tariffs and benefit customers, especially landline users.
Domestic termination charges are the charges payable by a telecom service provider whose subscriber originates the call to the telecom service provider in whose network the call terminates. In the current system, the calling party subscriber pays for the call to his telecom service provider who, in turn, pays termination charges to the called party’s telecom service provider to cover the network usage costs.
As per the TRAI decision, the termination charge from fixed line phones have been slashed from 20 paise per minute to zero, and for mobile phones the charge has been reduced to 14 paise from 20 paise per minute.
The regulator hopes the move will help promote investment and adoption of wireline network in the country. The TRAI envisages the wireline network to evolve as an effective vehicle for delivery of high speed Internet in the country.
Responding to the new interconnection usage charges amendment, Mr. Bali, CEO & Director, Videocon Telecom says: “We welcome the Regulation to the extent that it reflects part of our aspiration. Our stand always has been Bill & Keep. The Regulation has prescribed this principle for calls between wired and wireless networks but not on wireless to wireless networks. Keeping a termination charge of 14 paise for calls between wireless networks is, indeed, not equitable and to some extent takes away the impact of its forward look significantly.”
“This move will help fixed-line players like BSNL and MTNL to utilize their idle capacities and launch innovative plans. Also, their costs will come down,” Arvind Kumar, advisor at Trai is quoted as saying.
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