Foreign long-distance operators such as BT and AT&T have opposed the Telecom regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) decision to increase international termination charges. The operators are of the view that increasing these fees may lead to an increase in grey market outfits.

A termination charge is a fee paid by the operator on whose network the call originates to the operator on whose network it terminates. While TRAI has reduced the rates for domestic calls, the termination charge for international incoming calls has been revised from Re 0.40 per minute to Re 0.53 per minute.

The Association of Competitive Telecom Operators (ACTO) has approached TRAI with a view that the global market for international termination should be kept unregulated. The foreign operators have further quoted a 2014 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) paper, stating that when the price difference between international and domestic termination rates becomes large, a grey market is created to bypass the official rate.

Grey market operators, collect traffic through calling cards or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications. Such calls are not handed over through the gateways but are routed into the country either through the Internet or through an illegal exchange.