Bharti Airtel Issues Clarification on IUC Row After Reliance Jio Slams 6 Paise Charge on Customers

Today marks a big day in the telecom industry as we have seen an open war cry from Reliance Jio against the Interconnect Usage Charges (IUC) being applicable for its prepaid subscribers. The feud between Reliance Jio and the other private telecom operators have been ongoing since the last few months, and it has intensified, especially in the last two weeks. Things took an interesting turn today when the Mukesh Ambani led telecom operator slapped an IUC charge on its prepaid subscribers. Now, in a follow-up move, Bharti Airtel has issued a clarification on the same, thus giving out its views. Bharti Airtel, in a press release published minutes ago, has noted that its competitor has imposed an IUC termination charge of 6 paise on its subscribers. The telco has noted that with this move, Reliance Jio has suggested that Trai has reopened the issue.

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Bharti Airtel Revisits Trai Statements for Clarification

Highlighting the matters with Trai, Bharti Airtel remarked that back on September 19, 2019, when Trai reduced the IUC from 14 paise to 6 paise and proposed a gradual shift towards Bill and Keep (zero IUC), the regulator had also gone on to mention the following. The Sunil Bharti Mittal led telecom operator, in its clarification quoted Trai’s words, “The Authority shall keep a close watch on developments in the sector particularly with respect to the adoption of new technologies and their impact on Termination cost. The Authority, if deems it necessary may revisit the aforementioned scheme of Termination charge applicable on Wireless to Wireless calls after one year from the implementation of the regulation.”

Airtel Highlights Large 2G Population in India

Bharti Airtel further added that Trai had assumed some things based on the two factors. First of them being the adoption of VoLTE, which Trai assumed would bring the IUC costs down for the telcos. Secondly, Airtel highlighted that Trai had assumed that with the growth of the smaller operators, the network symmetry would strike a balance. However, both of these things have not been able to materialise in the telecom industry as the telecom regulator had imagined. Following up to this, Bharti Airtel noted that there are still 400 million 2G customers who hail from a poor background and are spending less than Rs 50 per month and cannot actually afford to buy a 4G device. Along with this, there is also substantial asymmetry in traffic which still exists.