Stock market update: Vodafone, Airtel rise as TRAI ponders deferring zero-IUC

NEW DELHI: Telecom stocks were trading mixed on Thursday, with Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel up and MTNL and Reliance Communication down.

Vodafone Idea surged about 12 percent intraday on BSE to Rs 5.44 after the telecom regulator issued a discussion paper on deferring the implementation of the zero interconnect usage charges (IUC) regime that was slated to kick in from January 2020

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said consumers are yet to migrate completely to data calls and that the imbalance in voice traffic between operators still exists.


The introduction of paper increases hopes that telcos will continue to get IUC as part of their revenue in case the implementation of zero IUC.

The development also pushed Airtel share prices up over 1 per cent intraday to Rs 339.90 on BSE.

MTNL and RCom were trading 3.5 per cent and 4.3 per cent down, respectively. Reliance Industries, which owns Jio, was trading 0.2 per cent down at Rs 1,203.40.