Shadowy wars return to telecom with TRAI U-turn video

Shadowy wars have returned to the telecom sector with a video being floated in the public space accusing the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) of delaying the introduction of Bill and Keep (BAK) regime, or zero termination charge, from January 1, 2020.

The video uploaded on YouTube says that it is issued in public interest by the telecom watchdog. The video is titled, "TRAI U-turn: Anti-consumer Sharma to end free calling".

The voiceover on the video says that under pressure TRAI has postponed zero termination charges three times in the past.

For mobile to mobile calls, 6 paisa termination charges were prescribed which was to end by January 1, 2020 as TRAI had said earlier, but it has issued a discussion paper on September 18 asking whether the January 1 deadline needs to be extended further. The video carries pictures of TRAI Chairman R.S. Sharma.

Citing portions of the TRAI discussion paper of 2017, the video extols the virtues of a zero termination regime.

It has implied that "greedy operators" like Airtel and Vodafone Idea are terminating calls on the 2G and 3G network so that they claim this 6 paisa charge.

It has questioned as to why TRAI is stuck in this trap and why telecom operators working on old technology are getting the advantage.

The video questions TRAI on not going ahead with the zero termination charges and why consumers are being cheated.

The video ends with a question to TRAI and the telecom ministry, asking them to decide on what is right and what is wrong.

( With inputs from IANS )