Here’s How India’s Telecom Watchdog Proposes To Address Interconnect Row

India's telecom watchdog has stepped in to address the raging controversy over interconnection between Reliance Jio and the existing operators.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has revived the plan of establishing an exchange to facilitate connectivity, and proposed setting up of a coordination panel that will speed up interconnection deals between operators.

Interconnection row has been a major concern for the industry over the last two decades, but following the recent fight between Reliance Jio and the incumbent operators, the TRAI proposed a Rs 3,000 crore penalty on Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone for failing to provide adequate interconnection to Reliance Jio.

“The exchange will provide interconnection ports to all variety of telecom service providers and, in turn, it will reduce the number of points of interconnection as all players can connect via this one platform,” TRAI said.

The telecom regulator is also studying the possibility of creating a new licensee to operate the interconnect platform.

Industry experts say that by using an interconnect platform the network architecture could get simplified, resulting in major cost reduction. The plug-and-play system may also make it easy for operators to get interconnection quickly.