MTNL, BSNL wants share of roaming revenue
Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam have called for revenue sharing between operators for roaming customers, over and above the fixed, 30-paise-per-minute charge the regulator has granted the operator on whose network the roaming ca...
By Joji Thomas Philip, TNN |
NEW DELHI: Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam have called for revenue sharing between operators for roaming customers, over and above the fixed, 30-paise-per-minute charge the regulator has granted the operator on whose network the roaming call is terminated.
However, private players like Bharti, Reliance Communications and Tata TeleServices, the industry associations — Cellular Operators’ Association of India and Association of Unified Service Providers of India, have told Trai that there was no justification in the PSUs’ demand.
Currently, roaming rates vary between different operators and these are much higher than normal tariffs. While on roaming, the customer is outside his home network, and the terminating network gets Rs 0.30 per minute as prescribed by Trai (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India).
The PSUs have said that as all operators treat their roaming subscriber differently from normal subscriber by charging them a much higher tariff that was not cost-based, there should be revenue share between roamer’s home network and the terminating network.
Private players don’t share the stance: “Termination charges are independent of the tariff charged by the originating operator as the tariff is forborne and the originating operator is free to set any tariff. Any increase in these termination charges would result in increase in the effective tariff for the subscriber. Operators like us who are not charging for airtime for roaming may have to increase the tariff for roamers accordingly,” Tata Teleservices said in its communication to Trai.
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Adopting a similar stance, Bharti Airtel said: “The terminating operator has no additional role to play in the case of a call made by a roaming subscriber, and then there is no justification or logic for the terminating operator for asking any additional revenue over and above prescribed IUC termination charges (Rs 0.30/minute).” Reliance Communications has argued that since the work done for the terminating operator is same, irrespective of the origination of call, there should not be any extra charges on calls made by national roamer and international roamers.
The company also added that this move, if implemented, would result in double charging since revenue from roamers was both already included in the calculation of both aggregate gross revenue and access deficit charge as percentage of revenue share is being paid to BSNL on these calls.
Taking their demand a step further, BSNL and MTNL, have also proposed that the regulator fix the revenue share charge as the likelihood of negotiations between operators succeeding was quite remote due to the multiplicity of service providers.
Additionally, they have also added that the percentage of revenue to be shared must be different for national and international roaming calls.
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