core sector communique

TRAI issues ‘The Telecommunication Interconnection (Port Charges) (Second Amendment) Regulations, 2012’

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today released the Telecommunication Interconnection (Port Charges) (Second Amendment) Regulations, 2012. Port is an essential part for the establishment of the interconnection between two networks. Port may be defined as a place of termination on a switch/exchange to provide Point of Interconnection (POI) for ingress and egress of traffic between the two interconnecting networks. The Port charges are payable by the interconnection seeker to the interconnection provider for terminating interconnection links on the network interface of the interconnection provider. The port charges were initially determined by TRAI in 1999 and modified by issuing ‘The Telecommunication Interconnection (Port Charges) Regulation 2001’ in December 2001. These charges were subsequently revised in February, 2007. To further review port charges, TRAI issued a consultation paper on 09.05.2012. On the basis of comments/ counter comments received from stakeholders and further internal analysis, TRAI today issued the amendment to the regulations. In the present amendment, ceiling for providing port in Tandem/ TAX Switch has been specified as Rs. 10,000 per port per annum and for providing port in MSC, the ceiling has been specified as Rs. 4,000 per port per annum. The revised Port Charges will come into effect from 1st October, 2012. The amendment along with explanatory memorandum has been placed on TRAI’s website www.trai.gov.in.