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Andrew Bonwick
Vice President of Product Development at Relm Insurance
Madhav Sheth
CEO of Ai+ Smartphone
Stephen Rose
CEO Render Networks
Mukesh Ambani led telco Reliance Jio Infocomm has backed the Trai decision, whereby the regulator has decided to cut down the Interconnection Usage Charge (IUC). The telco says that this move will remove the “artificial tariff hurdle” and will be a good step towards the adoption of new technologies like VoLTE. In its annual report, Jio said that the IUC cut “…not only removes the artificial tariff hurdle with floor price but also allows faster adoption of more efficient technologies like VoLTE, as erstwhile legacy networks are nearing obsolescence.”
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IUC is a charge paid to the telco on whose network the call is terminated. Under the decision by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), the IUC was cut almost 57% to 6 paise per minute. This happened in October 2017, now Trai has ruled that the charge would be scrapped starting January 2020.
Other incumbent telcos, however, weren’t pleased by this decision of Trai. Idea Cellular, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India were against the decision since many calls are terminated on their network in the country. These three telcos have around 60% of the total subscriber base. The three companies alleged that the regulator was favouring Reliance Jio and moved court, to challenge the decision and request alter move.
It is also noteworthy that Reliance Jio, which started its operations in the September 2016 was the first one to request the removal of the IUC charge. Jio also spoke its thought on the issue citing that before it entered into the market, digitisation and data consumption were “subdued, because of inadequate investment in infrastructure, lack of credible competitive environment coupled with steep pricing.”
