Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Mobile Tarrifs might Fall in 2009

Mobile tariffs might fall in the coming year, since on Wednesday, the telecommunication regulator TRAI started reviewing various intra-operator
charges including those for calls landing in each other's network.

Issuing a consultation paper on "Review of Interconnection Usage Charge", TRAI has taken information from all stakeholders on various charges payable by operators to one another for carriage and termination of domestic and international calls.

The new telecommunication operators, who are awaiting to start offering mobile services, had argued the high rate of termination charge of 30 paise a minute and had demanded that it should be lowered to a maximum ceiling of 10 paise.

Termination charge is money paid by an operator to another operator on whose network the call ends.




TRAI has however maintained that termination charge cannot be reviewed in isolation. The whole of IUC, which comprises origination, termination, carriage and transit charges, needs to be reviewed.

The new telecommunication providers have said that since most of the calls originate from their networks would be terminated on the network of existing providers, payment of 30 paise a minute would leave very little scope for them to introduce innovative tariff schemes to their subscribers and would also put pressure on their margins.

Even Department of Telecommunication had intimated that termination charges need to be lowered, as the cost of building up networks has come down considerably over the last 4-5 years.

For mobile users, it is certainly a good news at the end of the year.

Wishing you a happy and prosperous 2009!


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