TRAI’s move to review scrapping IUC is regressive, will hurt consumers: Jio

New Delhi: The telecom regulator’s move to re-examine the decision of scrapping interconnect usage charges from 1 January, 2020 is a regressive step and will further the digital divide in the country, a top Jio official said on Tuesday.

“Starting a fresh consultation process just 3 months before the date to implement the decision (to scrap IUC) is an incentivisation programme to continue to keep 400 million customers on 2G networks without digital connectivity,” Jio’s President-Networks, Mathew Oommen said in an interview.

“This is not a progressive technology adoption process,” Oommen said, adding that the concept of point of interconnect and interconnect usage charge is related to 2G technology and hence obsolete.