Interconnection charges have no relation with tariff, says Airtel’s Mittal

Charges as levied by an operator on incoming calls landing on its network have no relation with tariff, Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal told regulator Trai, pitching for continuation of interconnect user charge (IUC). Mittal said the free or affordable phone calls customers are enjoying prove that IUC does not come in the way of affordable rates. "IUC has no relation to customer tariff and that customers are enjoying free or affordable calls is a testimony that the current IUC regime is not coming in the way of affordable tariffs," Mittal said in a letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Reliance Jio offers free voice calls while other telecom operators, including Bharti Airtel, have slashed call rates. Trai fixes IUC that has several components. Charges levied for interconnecting mobile calls are at the centre of the IUC issue. A telecom operator charges 14 paise per minute for every incoming mobile call, called mobile termination charge (MTC), received from the other network. Reliance Jio, Reliance Communications, Aircel, MTNL have demanded scrapping of the IUC regime and moving to the Bill and Keep (BAK) regime under which no operator raises such demand. Established players -Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular -- on Tuesday sought doubling of MTC, part of IUC, saying termination of incoming calls on their networks costs 30-35 paise per minute. "The current IUC at 14 paise is already well below cost and it will be in fitness of things that while taking a final decision, the Authority upholds the principle of compensation of work done by each operator and the IUC is set at costs discovered through a fair and transparent mechanism," Mittal added.