Trai invites public comments to review mobile call termination rate deadline

Telecom regulator Trai on Wednesday invited public views to review the January 1, 2020 deadline for service providers to end interconnect usage charges. A telecom operator pays for connecting calls of its subscribers to the company on whose network a call is made. Currently, an operator is required to pay 0.06 paisa per minute as mobile call termination charges, called interconnect usage charges (IUC), which is proposed to be made nil from January 1, 2020.

Telecom operators with large number of subscribers gain from IUC as most of the calls are made within their network while net payout for service providers with lower subscriber base is higher.