TRAI Cracks Down On Telco Interconnections  

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Tuesday made it mandatory for every service provider to allocate, on non-discriminatory basis, interconnection points within 30 days of receipt of request from another service provider.

"If any service provider contravenes the provisions of these regulations, it shall, without prejudice to any penalty which may be imposed under its licence, or the provisions of the Act or rules or orders made or directions issued, thereunder, be liable to pay an amount, by way of financial disincentive not exceeding Rs 1 lakh per day per licensed service area," the regulator said.

The Telecommunication Interconnection Regulations, 2018 published by TRAI on Tuesday will come into effect from February 1, 2018.

The regulations comprise aspects of interconnection agreement, provisioning of initial interconnection and augmentation of Points of Interconnections (PoI), interconnection charges, disconnection of PoIs and financial disincentive on interconnection matters.

The regulator also clarified that the interconnection charges such as set-up charges and infrastructure charges may be mutually negotiated between service providers subject to the regulations or directions issued by the Authority from time to time, provided that such charges are reasonable, transparent and non-discriminatory.

The issue of PoIs became important for the telecom industry when Reliance Jio entered the market. It had accused incumbent players of not providing enough PoIs.

IANS