Trai had proposed charging the calling party at Rs 3.90 per minute for calls made to cellular phones and sharing of the revenue between the basic service provider and cellular operator.

It is learnt that COAI has opposed the move as according to the association the proposals can be implemented only in the major metros and cannot be properly implemented in other cities and towns leading to a loss of revenue to the cellular operators, especially the ones operating in circles.

Trai's proposal had also created a rift within COAI. While the metro operators were in favour of theproposals, the circle cellular operators were against it.

The metro operators supported the move as the proposal will make incoming calls to cellular phones free, which in turn will help them increase their subscriber base. However, the circle cellular operators were of the opinion that since the proposals can be implemented only in the major metros and cannot be properly implemented in other cities and towns where they operate, it would lead to a loss of revenue.

It is understood that excepting in major cities, where most exchanges are electronic or digital that are intelligent enough to differentiate between calls made to cellular phones and to landlines, most of the places in the country are equipped with old analogue or crossbar exchanges. These will not be able to ascertain if a call has been made to a landline or mobile phone.

The association has pointed out that since DoT has exchanges that do not use the latest technology, it will not be able to bill subscribers for calling cellular phones. Andsince DoT would not be able to charge its subscribers at a different rate for making calls to mobile phones, they will also not be able to share the revenue with the cellular operators, COAI has pointed out.

Trai, in its sweeping proposals unveiled on September 9, had recommended that cellular users not be charged for incoming calls and instead the landline calls made to mobile phones be charged to the caller at Rs 3.90 per minute. The regulator also suggested that this charge be shared between the basic service provider, who will retain 15 per cent of the revenue, and the cellular operator who will get the remaining 85 per cent.

Trai must solve the issue:

It is extremely surprising that Trai has not factored in the technological bottlenecks to monitor calls from land lines to cellular phones in non-metro circles. Also, to solve the problem, Trai would be unable to have a separate tariff structure for metro and non-metro cellular circles as this would be discriminatory in nature. To salvage thesituation, the least Trai could do is not charge incoming calls in metro circles and direct DoT to compensate the non-metro operators for incoming calls through an amicable agreement.