Trai may soon have 'good news' for Airtel, Vodafone and 'bad' for Reliance Jio

The telecom regulator is likely to defer by a year implementation of the zero-interconnect usage charges (IUC) regime that was slated to kick in from January 2020, a person familiar with the matter said.
"The new direction on IUC is likely to be issued later in the day (Tuesday)," a person familiar with the matter said.
Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel had backed postponing implementation of the zero-IUC regime, as they are revenue earners. Reliance Jio, which is a net payer, had opposed any deferral.
The telecom regulator in September had issued a discussion paper on deferring the implementation of the zero-interconnect usage charges (IUC) regime, saying that consumers are yet to migrate completely to data calls and that the imbalance in voice traffic between operators still exists.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), in the paper, sought stakeholder views on the need to "revise the applicable January 2020 date for implementing the BAK (bill and keep) or zero-termination charge regime," and parameters that need to be adopted to set an alternative date.
At present, interconnect charge is paid by the call-originating telco to the destination operator. But under the proposed BAK system, which is set to take effect from January, the call-originating telco, which also bills the user, would keep the money, thus making it a zero-IUC regime.