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COAI urges telecom regulator to defer review of IUC till March 2017

19 Oct 2016 Evaluate

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has urged the telecom regulator TRAI to postpone review of interconnects usage charges (IUC) till March 2017. The industry body has said that the regulator has initiated various other consultations which depending upon their final outcomes 'may have a significant direct impact on cost structures, changes in technology and other market dynamics’.

TRAI had fixed October 17 as deadline for receiving industry comments on the contentious consultation paper on interconnection usage charges or IUC, which is paid by one telecom operator to another for connecting phone calls. COAI reportedly said that actual network-related costs incurred by telecom operators should be used to compute the interconnect charges, thereby batting for an increase in mobile termination charge.

Telecom operators including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular have sought to defer the review till March 2017. COAI in its latest submission to TRAI said that 'It is therefore critical that the IUC review should not be held at this stage and be deferred by some months, that is, after end March 2017. By such time there will be more clarity on several issues’’. Trai had extended the date for receiving comments on the paper twice.

COAI, in its response pointed out that "all its member operators support and recommend that mobile termination charge should be determined on the cost based principle, only Reliance Jio has a divergent view that 'Bill and Keep' approach should be adopted for determining the MTC. The mobile termination charge is currently pegged at 14 paise per minute and a cost-based model would imply an increase in termination charges. The cost-based model includes network operating costs, overhead costs, spectrum costs and capital costs.

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