The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued an amendment to the regulations on domestic carriage charges titled ‘Telecommunications Interconnection Usage Charges (IUC) (12th Amendment) Regulations’. As per the amendment, the telecom regulator has revised the domestic carriage charges downwards from Re 0.65 per minute to Re 0.35 per minute. The change in carrier charges will be effective from March 1, 2015.

Earlier, the ceiling of Re 0.60 was stipulated by TRAI under the IUC Regulations, 2006 and the same ceiling was retained when the regulations were reviewed in 2008-09.

Under the current regulations, an access service provider can only provide its telecom services within a licenced telecom circle. For inter-circle service, the calls are routed through a national long distance (NLD) operator, which is paid the carrier charges for carrying these inter-circle access services.

The amendment follows TRAI’s decision to review IUC charges in November 2014. Subsequently, TRAI had issued a consultation paper to seek comments from the various stakeholders to prescribe these revised carrier charges.