Telcos seek higher incoming international call rates to curb spam

Mumbai: Domestic telecom operators have called for an increase in India's international call termination charges (ITCs), saying they pay substantially higher amounts to foreign carriers for outgoing calls than what they receive for incoming calls.

Indian telcos currently receive a maximum of Rs 0.65 per minute for incoming international calls - among the lowest in the world - but pay anywhere between Rs 2 and Rs 19 per minute to foreign carriers for outgoing calls, depending on the destination country.

"This creates a financially attractive opportunity for fraudsters to route spam and phishing calls into India at very low cost," the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said.


The association has proposed raising India's ITC to Rs 4.5 per minute in its submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) as part of the regulator's consultation on reviewing interconnection regulations.

Citing a comparative analysis, COAI said while India's ITC is capped between Rs 0.35 and Rs 0.65 per minute, Myanmar, the Philippines, Dubai, and parts of Europe charge Rs 13-22 per minute, "making India's ITC only 3%-5% of global benchmarks."

"There is no reciprocity in this arrangement," it added.

Spam arbitrage exposed

COAI argued that Indian operators are at a structural disadvantage compared to foreign carriers and even domestic public sector operators BSNL and MTNL due to non-reciprocal practices.

The country's leading telco Reliance Jio proposed that ITC be revised upward to at least Rs 4 per minute for reciprocity, currency depreciation, and consumer protection.

It said the current low ITC "creates a lucrative arbitrage for spammers and overseas fraudsters," while higher termination charges would act as a deterrent against flash calls and spam traffic from abroad.

Vodafone Idea echoed similar concerns, saying the present framework "fails to address the menace of international spam and fraud calls" and requires a structural correction to prevent misuse of India's low-cost termination regime.

Bharti Airtel also proposed ITC revision to Rs 4-5 per minute, adding that "a glide path be established to progressively align India's ITC rates with global benchmarks over the next 2-3 years."

Telemarketers misusing P2P rules

Telcos have also asked Trai to explicitly exclude telemarketers and aggregators from person-to-person (P2P) interconnection rules, arguing that the zero domestic termination charge between telcos, meant for regular consumers, is being widely misused for unsolicited calls and messages.

"The interconnection framework was designed for P2P communication, not for large-scale commercial traffic," COAI said.

Airtel proposed that commercial segregation of P2P and application-to-person (A2P) traffic be made mandatory, with telemarketers required to establish direct commercial interconnection arrangements with operators. It also recommended a deterrent charge of Rs 0.50 per minute on A2P voice calls and raising the termination charge on commercial SMS to Rs 0.11-0.12 per message, up from the current Rs 0.07.

Jio said several unified licensees including TTL, RCom, Videocon, RingCentral and Zoom, despite having zero or very small active subscribers, have obtained points of interconnection (PoIs) for terminating A2P traffic originating from aggregators and call centres. The current regime enables such operators to retain a disproportionately large share of A2P revenue with minimal network investment, it said.

"To effectively curb spam, it is essential to create a strong deterrence," the company said, proposing separate A2P PoIs and a floor price of Rs 0.50 per minute for voice calls and Rs 0.12 per SMS. Currently, while a small charge of Rs 0.05 per SMS exists for A2P messages, there is no equivalent charge for voice calls, which operators say has resulted in a shift from SMS spam to voice-based calls.