After Reliance Infocomm, it was the turn of Tata Indicom to receive a notice from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) late last night seeking clarifications on its tariffs. The TRAI stated that Tata’s tariffs did not meet the criteria specified by it, though the company maintained that its wll tariffs have not been put on hold.‘‘We received a letter late last evening from the TRAI seeking certain clarifications but our WLL tariffs have not been put on hold,’’ Rakesh Sood of Tata Teleservices told The Indian Express. Tata Teleservices, the spokesperson said, would reply to TRAI “very shortly”.TRAI’s notices to WLL mobile operators have created a stir in the telecom market. The ongoing scrutiny of WLL tariffs against the benchmarks set by it saw operators such as Reliance, BSNL and MTNL lining up at TRAI office yesterday for clarifications. TRAI has said that it sought clarifications from various operators, whose tariffs were found to be non-compliant with interconnect usage charges (IUC) regime that came into force from Thursday.At the heart of the WLL tariff wrangle are underlying principles of non-discrimination, non-predatory pricing and IUC compliance, which TRAI says must be adhered to by the operators in filing their tariffs. The Tata Teleservices spokesperson did not comment on the specific aspects of the company’s WLL tariffs which had prompted TRAI to seek clarifications.Recently, TRAI said that since it was in the process of examining the cellular and WLL tariffs of various operators submitted late by them, for the month of May it would allow them to implement tariffs without prior approval and at their responsibility, on the condition that they meet certain general regulatory principles. It said operators should themselves withdraw the tariffs which are not iuc compliant (meaning tariffs which do not allow margins for payment of IUC rates) and cellular operators should ensure that from May 1 no tariff is levied on incoming calls.
