Telecom regulator reduces carriage charge by 30 paise

New Delhi, February 24:  

A day after reducing the termination charges, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has reduced carriage charges to 35 paise from 65 paise earlier. This will make STD calls cheaper.

“The ceiling of 65 paise for carriage charge was fixed in 2006. Thereafter, many developments have taken place. New telecom service providers (TSPs) have entered the national long distance... Therefore, the Authority is of the view that there is a strong case to review the carriage charge,” TRAI said.

National Long Distance traffic has increased significantly and the resultant lowering of costs cannot be ignored, it said.

Telecom operators pay domestic carriage charge when their customers make an STD call on the network of another TSP and the STD calls are transmitted across country using network of National Long Distance operators (NLDOs), the sector regulator said.

Large variation

It said the prevailing rate of carriage charges in the market was also taken into account and was observed that there is a large variation. For example, some NLDOs offer carriage charges as low as nine paise per minute while a few others charge at the ceiling rate of 65 paise per minute.

“The potential misuse of a high ceiling is another reason prompting a review of the carriage charge regime,” TRAI said.

“It was noted that the average for the industry excluding BSNL was about 21 paise per minute. One of the reasons for the higher cost of carriage in the case of BSNL is that BSNL carries a significant amount of traffic to remote and rural areas,” it added.

TRAI will review these charges again in 2017-18 as present networks are transforming in to Internet based network that is expected to change carriage cost structure.