Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has favoured a steep hike in international termination charges to ₹3.50 a minute against 53 paise per minute at present.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is in the midst of reviewing these rates, paid by foreign carriers for terminating international calls in India.
“Today, there is a 20:1 imbalance between incoming and outgoing international calls. In order to adjust the imbalance, you need to go to ₹3.50 on a weighted average basis, to correct the arbitrage,” COAI Director General Rajan Mathews said. COAI has argued there is a need to bridge the gap between blended termination rate paid by Indian operators for outgoing international calls and the termination rates received by them on international incoming calls.
Mr. Mathews sought to draw a distinction between termination charge complexities that come into play for domestic and international calls.
“International interconnect rates are not as simple as domestic because there are multiple countries with their own regulatory processes and they set their own rates...also there are currency fluctuations to deal with,” he said.
