Sir — This refers to the editorial, “The trouble with telecom” (September 22). The telecom industry’s concerns over Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) decision, to lower the interconnection usage charges (IUC) from the current 14 paise to a mere six paise per minute, are ill-founded.
The proposal to shift to bill and keep (BAK) regime was debated upon with all stakeholders in an open House discussion in 2015 during the tenure of former TRAI Chairman Rahul Khullar and later in 2016 under the present Chairman RS Sharma, through consultation papers on review of IUC charges. It is the prerogative of the regulator to ensure that the market does not function in regulatory vacuum and consumers are not short-changed. Moving to BAK from the present IUC is a systematic approach that is being followed by the regulator to test waters before roaming-free network access can be facilitated across all telecom circles.