Airtel urges telecom regulator to postpone scrapping of IUC

Kolkata: Bharti Airtel has urged the telecom regulator to postpone the scrapping of interconnection usage charges by at least three years from the planned January 2020 deadline, saying traffic symmetry between networks has not been achieved and over 400 million mobile users continue to use 2G networks, people close to the regulator said.
“The (London-based) GSMA too has predicted that 12-13% of customers will continue to use 2G handsets till 2025,” Airtel said in its submissions to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, which had sought comments on a proposal to defer the introduction of a zero interconnection usage charges regime.
“Traffic from the 4G-only operator continues to be on the higher side, both in terms of absolute magnitude and percentage,” Airtel said, adding that this indicated “traffic symmetry has not been achieved.”