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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has rejected the Department of Telecom’s view on the need for an immediate review of call carriage costs.
It has also said that it would take a measured decision on allowing access providers to negotiate charges for termination of international calls after considering all inputs, international practices and its own analysis.
Clarifying that access providers and ILD operators are already permitted to negotiate charges for originating international calls, TRAI has said that no ‘directions’ are necessary or advisable on these issues and has provided the reasoning for this stand.
According to sources, TRAI chairman Pradip Baijal sent his reply to DoT secretary J S Sarma last Thursday.
This particular missive arises out of DoT’s move last month to seek Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s permission to issue ‘directions’ to the regulator under Section 25 of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act.
The PMO did not provide permission to D0T, as the move would have curtailed regulatory independence.
It was then that Sarma sent a note marked ‘confidential’ to Bajpai seeking his views on a variety of issues, including the access deficit charge, differential pricing and carriage charges among others.
The DoT wanted a reply within days on these issues. Initially, Bajpai was unwilling to keep his reply confidential on account of regulatory provisions.
However, after some back and forth with the DoT secretary, Bajpai finally sent a reply. Incidentally, while his letter too is marked confidential, there is a possibility the views in it will be made public in due course, as is the usual TRAI practice.
The TRAI reply makes it clear that it is already seized of the matter of carriage costs.
“This is already an issue in the TRAI consultation paper of March this year. Regulator is considering various options in the carriage cost including the reduction in number of different distance slabs from the existing four to one or two or even forbearance with a ceiling for carriage charges. This will be done in a time bound manner after receiving the government’s reply. No direction is necessary,” it states.
On the issue of allowing access providers to negotiate termination and origination charges for international calls, TRAI has said that mutual negotiation does not always lead to an agreement.
“This can cause confusion in the market. TRAI has discussed the matter in its January 6 regulation and also the March consultation paper.
The authority fears that in case negotiation between access providers and ILD operators for incoming call termination charges is permitted, disputes may once again crop up, as was the situation prior to October 2003.
