New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has kickstarted the process to determine how much a mobile network operator should earn for receiving incoming international calls on its network. At present, a mobile operator earns 30 paise a minute for receiving international calls. For domestic calls, operators earn 6 paise a minute. This is called the interconnect usage charge or mobile termination charge.
The telecom regulator had separately also floated a consultation paper in September to review interconnect usage charges for domestic calls.
Trai had set 30 paise a minute as IUC for international calls in February 2018.
“While notifying the last amendment, the authority noted that, if it deems necessary, may review International Termination Charge from time to time,” TRAI said in a statement on Friday.
The regulator’s analysis has found that the rate of decline of international incoming voice traffic through carrier route has reduced after the revision of the mobile termination charges in February 2018.
“The domestic market composition is changing from voice centric to data centric, and the tariff offerings are changing from pricing of individual products like voice, data, messages etc to bundled offers comprising voice, data, and messages together. Similarly, in case of international roaming also, tariff packages for bundles comprising of certain pre-fixed quantity of incoming and outgoing voice calls, data, and messages are becoming popular,” TRAI said.
Written comments on the consultation paper are invited from the stakeholders by 9 December and counter-comments, if any, by 23 December.
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