The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a consultation paper on reviewing the existing regulatory regime for International Termination Charges (ITC).
The regulator is planning to overhaul the present regulatory regime of fixing uniform ITC and moving to a variable pricing mechanism offering more flexibility to local telcos for bilaterally negotiating with the foreign carriers.
TRAI has sought stakeholder views on whether a uniform ITC is still relevant or an alternate approach like forbearance regime is required.
The sector regulator has also asked for views on migration from a regulated to a forbearance regime for determining ITC leaving the ITC rates open for negotiation between India’s international long-distance operators (ILDOs) and foreign service providers.
TRAI will be accepting comments and counter-comments on the discussion paper till December 9 and December 23 respectively.
As per TRAI, the rate of decline of international incoming voice traffic through the carrier route has reduced after the ITC revision in January 2018.
