Trai in its order dated September 19, 2017 had stated that come January 1, 2020, no IUC would be payable by one mobile operator to another for incoming calls. IUC is anti-consumer and a great barrier to competition. It is a rent which pampers incumbents who do not upgrade. It prevents affordable tariffs and latest technologies from reaching the masses.

In several paras, Trai had exhaustively enunciated why IUC was bad and made known its decision of ringing in the efficient interconnection regime known as Bill and Keep (BAK) for all M2M calling, the only field where IUC was operable. Currently IUC is 6p/minute. It is also called Mobile Termination Charge (MTC), and is a big entry barrier for any new player wanting to come into the telecom market. New operators come with innovative tariff plans for users and acquire customers but for carrying calls they have to pay MTC of 6p/minute to the incumbent. Therefore, Trai has termed IUC as a floor tariff for retail in M2M calling and opposed its continuation.

For all other type of calls fixed to fixed, fixed to mobile, and mobile to fixed, IUC is zero. This has been effective since March 1, 2015.

Now Trai has brought out a U-turn consultation paper (CP). Though labelled consultation, it is reality a BAK deferment proposal on behalf of incumbent operators. Trai says since Airtel, Vodafone-Idea could not match their 4G/LTE network growth to Reliance Jio, BAK needs to be deferred as yesteryear’s 2G/3G technology is still being used for making and receiving calls.

Trai’s CP has now been usurped by the incumbents who have launched multi-tiered lobbying to achieve two objectives: raise tariff in the telecom sector and get an effective floor, something like a minimum support price, in the form of IUC. And it is a measure of the success of the incumbent operators that the very officialdom which was opposing the financial package for state owned telcos, MTNL and BSNL, is pushing for waivers, bailouts, and floor tariffs for Airtel and Vodafone-Idea.

Trai should look at its own assessments on BAK and IUC. It had said: the cost of terminating calls is close to zero, in an all-IP network a call of 9 min/p can be made and this costing includes 15 per cent profit on investments made, that BAK would enable operators to invest in new technology, promote traffic symmetry, market discipline and competition. Now in its so-called CP, Trai says IUC cannot be removed till traffic symmetry is achieved. It has forgotten competition and its own findings.

If Trai’s BAK deferment move is acted upon it would mean the following: end of healthy competition, perpetuation of entry barriers for new operators, denial of latest technology to the poor masses who would continue to use feature phones and pay more for legacy services.