BANGALORE: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) conducted an open house on 24 May in Bangalore to discuss its consultation paper on interconnection usage charge review.

Various issues such as whether ADC charges would be provided only to BSNL or also to other fixed service providers, the weightage for wired/wireless access in urban and rural areas and whether weightage should be given for WLL(F) lines were discussed in the open house. Topics including various mechanisms, pros and cons for switching over to ADC and the time frames were spoken at length.

Service providers and Trai mulled over the various ceilings, floor carriage charges, termination charges for Domestic and International charges, revenue sharing for National and International calls and the possibility of differential charges for mobile and fixed telephony in urban and rural areas.

Trai advisors M Kannan, A Sinha, Rajendra Singh, Pradeep Balal, D K Bhatnagar and Indu Liberhan conducted the Open House. Major telecom operators including Airtel, Hutch, Reliance and Tata participated in the forum.

Trai will be holding similar discussions in Delhi as well. While issues relating to private terrestrial TV broadcast service will be discussed in the forum scheduled for 26 May (11 am - 1 pm), a discussion on interconnection usage charge review will be held on 30 May (10:30 am - 2:30 pm).