Tuesday, March 29 2005 09:51 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has claimed that the proposed reduction in international bandwidth prices by up to 70 per cent with effect from April 1 is in line with global prices.

In its reply in response to VSNL's petition challenging its order on international bandwidth prices at the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), to be heard today (Mar 29, 2005), TRAI said that it had the powers to regulate the bandwidth prices.

"We have come out with a regulation after a comprehensive consultation with all the stakeholders and we took more than a year to process the data before coming out with final regulation," TRAI said.

Global prices of international bandwidth, known as International Private Leased Circuit (IPLC), have fallen significantly while operators in New Delhi had not followed the trend, it said.

VSNL had challenged TRAI's regulation on international bandwidth prices saying the issue should not be looked at in isolation vis-a-vis other costs like NLD and local loop.

IPLC is a very small fraction of the total cost of any bandwidth-related operation, so it is unfair to see IPLC prices separately and regulate them, the incumbent operator had said in its petition.

TRAI has set the ceiling tariff for IPLC half-circuit in respect of E1, DS3 and STM-1 capacities as Rs 13 lakh, Rs 104 lakh and Rs 299 lakh a year respectively.