Trai Zero IUC Regime Will Now Come into Effect in 2021, Companies Will Pay IUC For One More Year

The debate on the Interconnect Usage Charges (IUC) has been a long-standing one in the industry now. This debate has also been a reason for the tussle between the telecom operators, with the incumbents standing on one side and the Mukesh Ambani led telecom operator on the other side. It is worth noting that until now, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has said that it would transition to the zero IUC regime by the end of this year. This was the move which was expected to happen. The interconnect usage charges are currently capped at 6 paise per minute for the telecom operators as per the current rules in the industry. This was the reason why Mukesh Ambani led telecom operator started charging this amount from the subscribers. Now there has been a debate going on about when the transition to the zero IUC regime would be made. While most expected it to happen by the end of this year, there were also speculations that it would be postponed by two years. However, now it seems that Trai has found out the middle ground to this issue and postponed the transition to the zero IUC regime by a year.

• Make Telecom Talk My Trusted Source
• 
• 

Postponement of Zero IUC Regime

As per a new press release from the telecom regulator, the transition to the zero IUC regime has been postponed by a year. This means that until the end of 2020, the telecom operators will have to keep paying 6 paise per minute to each other for all the calls that they carry. This will be the case until December 31, 2020. After that starting 2021, the zero IUC regime would come into effect, where all the telecom operators will not have to pay any amount to carry the calls of other telecom operators. Trai noted in its release, “From 1st January, 2021 onwards the termination charge for wireless to wireless domestic calls shall be zero.”