In a major boost to the private operators, TRAI has disallowed additional revenue share for roaming calls between visiting network and terminating network but indicated the operators to cut high roaming tariffs.
"There is no justification for a revenue sharing arrangement among operators in respect of roaming calls (national and international)", TRAI said in a statement.
However, concerned over the high roaming tariff by some of the operators, TRAI has indicated that it may consider issuing a consultation paper to review the present roaming tariff regime, in the near future.
State-run BSNL who is an integrated player with considerable marketshare in the fixed, cellular telephony segment wanted 50 per cent of the international roaming charges of Rs 100 a minute. Currently any operator including BSNL who terminates such calls get only 30 paise.
"As per the prevailing IUC regulation, uniform termination charge of 30 per minute is applicable for all types of calls. The prescribed termination charge is cost based, independent of the network from where the call is originating/terminating and also independent of the tariff charged by the operators," TRAI said.
TRAI also reconfirmed its earlier decision that the terminating operator should get only the termination charge (30 paisa) as prescribed in the interconnect usage charges regulation.
{{/usCountry}}TRAI also reconfirmed its earlier decision that the terminating operator should get only the termination charge (30 paisa) as prescribed in the interconnect usage charges regulation.
{{/usCountry}}The goal is to achieve seamless national roaming without any extra burden on the consumers. Prescribing any additional amount for terminating such calls may defeat this objective, it said.
"One of the operators with significant market share conveyed its scheme for additional revenue share, over and above the prescribed termination charge for terminating the roaming calls in its network. It also sought commercial agreement with other operators on reciprocal basis. To deliberate upon the issue in a consultative manner, following its established practice, TRAI undertook a comprehensive consultation process," the regulator said.
In the consultation paper the main issue was that in case of roaming calls whether terminating network service provider should get a revenue share from the visiting network service provider or it should get only the termination charges as prescribed by the regulator.