War Between Telecom Operators Over Call Ring Duration: What Really Happened

A dispute between telecom operators over the ring duration for outgoing calls is not going to end soon, as Reliance Jio has urged TRAI, not to set any regulations on the same.

According to a PTI report, Jio suggested that if TRAI wants to intervene in this matter, then it should be in reference guidelines. "In such case, the range of 20 seconds to 25 seconds may be prescribed as reference guideline," Jio was quoted by the news agency.
Meanwhile, Airtel has intimated that this will impact the customer's experience and insisted that TRAI should fix terminating exchanger timings at 45 seconds. On the other hand, Vodafone has asked for 30 seconds.

The whole issue came into limelight when Jio has increased the ring duration time for outgoing calls to 25 seconds. This development comes after, Airtel informed TRAI that it will also cut the ring duration time to 20 seconds as Jio did. Airtel has also urged TRAI to tell Jio to increase ring duration time. It is worth mentioning that the telecom regulator has already floated a consultation paper on the same and there will be an open house discussion on the matter, on October 17.

Why Ringer Time Is Important?

Telecom operators have to pay some amount of fee if a user made a call to other networks. This is known as Interconnect Usage Charges (IUC). At present, all telecom are companies are paying 6 paise per minute. These charges were decided by the sector regulator in 2017. This is also important because this will give a fair chance to all users to receive calls. And if timers are set differently than one user will get more time to receive calls than others.