Your international calls to India may become cheaper soon. India’s telecom watchdog, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has reduced the international termination rate (ITR) from the current rate of 53 paise per minute to all way down to 30 paise per minute.
The ITR rates are charges payable by an international telecom operator to an Indian telecom operator who receives the voice call (or where the call terminates). With the new regulation in place, international telecom operators can make their tariff to call India much cheaper. The new charges will come into effect from 1st February 2018.
However, this new regulation could be a double blow to incumbent operators especially Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular which receive the bulk of the international calls on their network. It’s estimated that there will be a reduction by nearly half of the Rs 5000 crore of revenue from incoming international calls, which mostly terminate with this telecom operators.
The regulator, recently only cut the interconnect usage charges (IUC) from 14 paise per minute to 6 paise per minute. Thus making things worse for incumbent telecom operators, who are losing a whole lot of money fighting Reliance Jio.
The new regulation from TRAI is been issued as part of the Telecommunication Interconnection Usage Charges (Fourteenth Amendment) Regulations, 2018. Through this, the regulator has reduced the termination charges payable by an International Long Distance Operator (ILDO) to the access provider in whose network the call terminates.