New Delhi: The prevailing telecom tariffs are likely to undergo a change with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today (Oct 29) announcing its much-awaited revised Interconnection Usage Charges (IUC) for the sector.

TRAI, in its revised IUC regime, has spared the WLL (Wireless in Local Loop) mobile and cellular operators to pay any additional charge for using each others' network for calls within the circle.

In the case of inter-circle calls (calls from one state to another), the network charges have been imposed ranging between 30 paise per minute for calls up to 50 kilometres, 50 paise for calls in a distance of 50-200 kilometres and 80 paise for above 200 kilometres.

On all the international long distance calls (ISD), a charge of Rs 4.25 has been fixed between all types of services.

The new IUC regime would be come into effect from December 1, 2003.

TRAI said, "With this IUC regime, the authority has also forborne with respect to the tariffs or basic service except for rural tariffs and PCOs/ village phone tariffs."

This means that the basic telecom tariffs would be determined by competition in the market.

As per the revised regime, TRAI has estimated the access deficit of state-owned BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) at Rs 5,340 crore, which is lower than the earlier estimates.

PTI

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