TRAI Issues Draft to Tweak Interconnect Regulations

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has issued a draft to amend interconnect regulations, proposing certain changes in terms and conditions for operators to seek fresh call connect ports from other telcos.

The draft Telecommunication Interconnection (Amendment) Regulations 2018 proposed that a service provider can ask another operator for additional ports, in case the projected utilization of the capacity is likely to exceed 85 percent over 60-day period. An operator will have to give a forecast of outgoing call traffic of busy hours for each interconnect point once every 6 months — April 1 and October 1 — to the interconnecting service provider. The first such forecast has to be given within 2 months from the commencement of these amended regulations.

The issue of inter-connectivity had been a major flashpoint between Reliance Jio and incumbent telecom operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, at the time when the newcomer launched its services in 2016.