Supreme Court grants four more months to TRAI for new IUC regime

The Supreme Court has granted a three-month extension to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for framing new guidelines pertaining to interconnection usage charges (IUC).

IUC are paid by an operator for using another operator?s network to transmit and complete a call.

Prior to this, the court had given TRAI four months to frame new IUC recommendations, which lapsed on June 4, 2011.

Meanwhile, the regulator is facing stiff opposition from GSM operators for not including capital expenditure (capex) while framing the new recommendations. The advocates presenting Bharti airtel and Vodafone Essar said that TRAI excluding capex in the earlier IUC recommendations was done to favour Reliance Communications.

However, the court said it is currently scrutinising TRAI?s request only.