Vodafone India Says Cut in IUC Charge to Hurt Rural Coverage, Idea Says Support Falling Data Rates

Aditya Birla Group-owned telco Idea Cellular said that the government policy framework should allow telecom service providers to recover their costs, but said that it is completely in agreement that data prices need to come down, according to media reports.

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Vodafone India during its IMG meeting said that IUC, which is currently at 14 Paise, is already below cost, and any further cut in these inter-operator charges could hurt rural coverage. It also favoured lowering of spectrum usage charges or completely do away with it.

Both Vodafone and Idea said the lives like licence fee, spectrum usage charges and USO levy should be subsumed by GST, the new indirect tax regime to be rolled out from July 1.

An Idea executive said that the telco would put more investments into business. “We have proven to them that very significant equity infusion has been made, and will continue to happen,” the executive said at the IMG meeting.

Vodafone during its meeting with the IMG rejected Reliance Jio’s views that top telcos have not invested enough in the sector, adding that it was also ready for deploying new technology.

“Vodafone has the largest FDI invested in the country, and we have brought in a lot of equity since the government has come in. In the last two years alone, we got Rs 55,000 crore of equity, including Rs 48,000 crore last year which is by far the largest across any investor and any sector,” a Vodafone executive was quoted as saying. He added that there is financial stress in the sector, but Vodafone doesn’t have the highest debt.