TRAI: All about new IUC regulations

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has mandated service providers to enter into interconnection agreement "on the non-discriminatory basis" within 30 days of receipt of the request from a service provider receiving network connectivity request from another operator.

"After entering into an interconnection agreement, the service provider, who made request for entering into interconnection agreement, may request the other service provider to provide such number of ports at POIs which shall meet the requirement of its outgoing and incoming traffic at the POIs for a period of three months from the date of initial interconnection," TRAI said.

According to the regulations paper, if any service provider contravenes the provisions of these regulations, it shall, without prejudice to any penalty which may be imposed under its licence, or the provisions of the Act or rules or orders made or directions issued, thereunder, be liable to pay an amount, by way of financial disincentive not exceeding rupees one lakh per day per licensed service area.

The Authority on Tuesday issued the 'Telecom Interconnection Regulations 2018' comprising of regulations on aspects of network connectivity agreements, provisioning of such connectivity amongst operators at initial stages, augmentation of Points of Interconnect, applicable rates or charges, disconnection of ports, and financial disincentive on interconnection issues.

The rules will come into effect from February 1, 2018, and regulations will apply to all the service providers offering telecom services in India TRAI further said.

It has also outlined a framework for provisioning and augmenting of interconnectivity ports, laying down a step-by-step process for provisioning of such ports.

The rules issued today follows a detailed consultation process by TRAI that started in October 2016 and included open house discussions and written comments by stakeholders.

"Interconnection usage charges" or "IUC" means the charge payable by one service provider to one or more service providers for usage of the network elements for origination, transit or termination of the calls.