Telecom tariffs may go down as Trai cuts interconnection charges

In a bid to boost fixed line phone connections in the country, telecom regulator Trai Monday removed charges that a landline service provider has to pay to the other service providers for transmitting its customers’ phone calls In a bid to boost fixed line phone connections in the country, telecom regulator Trai Monday removed charges that a landline service provider has to pay to the other service providers for transmitting its customers’ phone calls - a move that is likely to lead to lower tariffs. Trai has also reduced network interconnection usage charges on calls made from mobile phones by about 30 percent to 14 paise per call from 20 paise earlier. State-run telecom companies BSNL dominates landline phone connections with 62.71 percent market share followed by MTNL 13.04 percent, Bharti Airtel 12.55 percent, Tata Teleservices 5.98 percent and Reliance Communications 4.39 percent. In mobile segment, Bharti Airtel leads market with 23.01 percent market share followed by Vodafone 18.93 percent, Idea Cellular 15.95 percent, RCom 11.26 percent, BSNL 8.62 percent, Aircel 8.33 percent, Tata Teleservices 7.01 and Uninor 4.62 percent.