Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Dec 30, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Dec 30, 2003 |
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Info-Tech
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Telecommunications IUC regime: TRAI shelled out Rs 56 lakh for consultancy G. Rambabu
New Delhi , Dec. 29 THE interconnection usage charge (IUC) regime that is scheduled to come into force from January 1, 2004, did not come cheap! According to official sources, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) spent a total of Rs 56 lakh as consultation fees before it finally decided on the new modalities of interconnection to be followed by the various service providers. While Rs 38 lakh was the cost for seeking the services of Consulting Ltd, UK, Rs 18 lakh was spent as the consultation fees of Mr Edgado Sepulveda, Toronto, Canada. The UK firm was hired for an estimation of access deficit charges (ADC) based on forward looking long run incremental costs (FLLRIC) and other models. Mr Sepulveda on the other hand was hired as a short term consultant for the implementation of IUC. Justifying the need for these consultations, the sources noted that the Authority considered the framework used for calculating the IUC under the previous exercise (effective from May 1, 2003), and noted that the cost basis used had been historical average costs from audited accounts of BSNL. It noted that for costing purposes, several countries had used FLLRIC, i.e. a methodology under which only a portion of stranded costs (or costs arising due to past high equipment prices or old technologies) is included in the calculation of costs. The Authority noted that the difference between historical costs and forward looking costs would be large, and relying on costs based only on modern and forward looking technologies would imply a large burden from the stranded costs for BSNL. While the Authority feels that change over to FLLRIC model is imperative, it examined the implications of a sudden changeover against a gradual changeover, and for this expert opinion had to be taken from experts in the field, they said. Meanwhile, they pointed out that the estimated cost of the ongoing consultations on number portability, quality of service and Internet growth among others are in the region of Rs 120 lakh. The proposal on number portability, whereby the subscribers can retain their telephone number even while shifting service providers, is expected to cost the authority Rs 42.30 lakh. The forthcoming workshop on broadband technologies and study related regulatory issues has been budgeted at Rs 22.28 lakh, study on guidelines for competition in multi-service, multi-operator network for stand alone and integrated operators, at Rs 20 lakh is to be given to consultancy firms soon. Similarly consultants are going to be hired for infrastructure sharing (Rs 19.35 lakh) growth of Internet in the country (Rs 18.30 lakh), directory enquiry (Rs 11.25 lakh) and techno regulatory issues relating to introduction of intelligent network services based on IN platform for multi-operator, multi-services scenario (Rs 11.25 lakh).
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