The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has initiated the process of revising the termination charge paid by operators in West Asia to bring their traffic to India.
The regulator had sought inputs from Indian operators to revise the termination charge and had said the exercise will be limited to operators in West Asia. Call tariffs to India from West Asia may increase by up to Rs 7 per minute if TRAI accepts the operators? recommendations.
Currently, operators including Saudi Telecom , Zain and Etisalat pay Re 0.40 per minute for terminating their traffic in India, but charge their counterparts like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Vodafone Essar around Rs 7 per minute as termination fee for calls that originate in India and terminate in the Gulf countries.
Indian operators say that TRAI decided to intervene after they had pointed out that operators here obtained Rs 4.75 billion annually from operators in West Asia as termination fee, but paid over Rs 13 billion for terminating their traffic there, leading to a loss of Rs 8.25 billion in foreign exchange. As part of the proposed solution, TRAI may permit operators to charge reciprocal termination rates.
