The Cellular Operators Association of India on Monday upped its ante against sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), saying its recent consultations would hurt the incumbent companies and appears to be biased. In this regard, COAI has called for a balanced, transparent and unbiased regulatory regime. “While DoT (Department of Telecommunications) is taking progressive steps to support the growth of the industry, some of the recent consultation papers by Trai appear to be biased and aimed at hurting the existing operators,” COAI said in a statement.

“An inconsistent policy framework will hurt investments and may even impact the rollout of networks, especially in rural areas,” it added. Stating the recent consultations around mobile termination charges and termination of internet telephony calls, call drop regulation and reducing the block size of 2300Mhz spectrum band in the upcoming auctions “have left the industry worried”. The COAI said the developments “appear to be distorting the level-playing field within the sector and are regressive in nature”.

COAI said such inconsistent policies could hurt investor sentiment and hurt rollout of networks especially in rural areas, and has urged the government and Trai to “address and resolve its concerns on an urgent basis”.

The missive comes two days after the Trai floated a consultation paper on Interconnect Usage Charge, seeking to review the termination rates ahead of its schedule.

The consultation paper to review termination charges favours an approach that it should be bill and keep, which means zero rate from the current 14 paise per minute. Since termination charges are paid to the operator on whose network a call terminates by the originating network operator, a lower or zero rate favours newer operators compared to incumbents, and that’s the reason such a move always creates controversy.

Any move to lower the rate at this point of time will favour Reliance Jio, which is scheduled to start its services later this year, hence COAI is crying foul.

The termination charges were last reviewed on March 1, 2015 by the regulator, which had then said it will review such charges every two years. Hence, the current review is unwarranted. However, the Trai has taken the stand that since the operators are moving to IP networks where cost-based rates won’t technically work, a review is required at the moment. However, telecom sector analysts told FE that at the moment only Reliance Jio has a fully IP-based network, not others.

Operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular have core networks and they are fully compatible for interconnection with Jio’s IP network. Only when there is a full transition to an IP-based network by all the operators, will a need arise to move to a cost-based regime. But it will take at least five years for this full transition to take place, and hence, the present move is unwarranted.