The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is set to review interconnect usage charges (IUC) after they were fixed back in 2002-03 and not revised since then.
IUC is payable by one telecom operator to others for use of their networks either for origination, termination or carriage of a call. Inter-operator calls constitute a major part of the total calls handled by the telecom network.
Although reduction in these charges would lead to a lower tariff for customers as benefits would be passed on due to intense competition, it would dent the profitability of telecom operators mainly Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, BSNl and Vodafone. The move would prove beneficial to new operators since bulk of traffic originating on their low subscriber base would be terminating on the existing operators network, as the former have lesser network than the latter.
