Why is Trai even considering bill and keep regime: Sunil Mittal

NEWDELHI: In yet another attempt to salvage call termination charges in the telecom sector, Sunil Mittal, chairman of India’s largest telecom company Bharti Airtel, has written to Trai chairman RS Sharma saying he is “at a loss as to why Trai should be considering Bill and Keep model” and break away from the global wellestablished practice of interconnect usage charge.

What surprises him most, he wrote on July 24, is that no one has even talked about IUC for international call settlement, which is prevalent across markets. A copy of the letter has been reviewed by Mint.

Mittal in the letter said that currently, IUC for a call from India to the US is about 1.2 cents, to Europe about 3-30 cents, to the Middle East about 10-14 cents, etc. Neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal charge about 2-13 cents.

Similarly, when calls come into India, Trai has set an IUC to be paid to mobile operators at 53 paisa, and in turn the Indian international operator charges approximately 1 cent as IUC for incoming calls on their network.

“Trai not even debating this issue, therefore, confirms the Authority’s acceptance to the principle that IUC is indeed a settled global practice built on fair and equitable settlements for work done by each operator for carrying each other’s calls,” Mittal said.

“Why should India be any different? It should not be... I am, therefore, at a loss as to why Trai should be considering a Bill and Keep (BAK) regime in India as one of the options and break away from the global well-established practice, while at the same time, not disturbing the settled IUC on international calls,” he added.

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd is pressing for a so-called Bill-andKeep model, wherein IUC (paid by the telco from which a call originates to the telco which receives the call) will be effectively scrapped. Rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone India Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd, on the other hand, want these charges raised to at least 30 paise per call from 14 paise now.

Mittal in his letter also said that IUC has no relation to customer tariff and at the same time is ensuring that investments in networks continue to be made by all operators, and customer calls are satisfactorily completed.