Calcuuta: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is going to propose imposition of access deficit charges which should be appropriated by the local access providers of long distance telephony. The TRAI report on ADC along with other recommendations will be submitted to the Union Government in a couple of months for its consideration, chairman HS Verma told reporters here on Tuesday during the open house discussion on issues related to Universal Service Obligations (USO). TRAI had similar discussions with the concerned people in New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. "TRAI is trying to devise a way so that the local access providers get access deficit charges for long distance calls.Access providers need the support as they are the most disadvantaged," Verma said. Imposition of ADC, basically a revenue sharing avenue, will become a must with the entry of private sector in long distance telephony service since those providing access to such calls would have to invest for that and need returns from the investment. At present, the entire revenue charged for a long distance call is appropriated by the originating centre and accessing centre gets nothing. Since both in India are under Department of Telecom (DoT)/ Department of Telecom Services (DTS), the question of revenue sharing did not arise. Till date, out of 600,000 villages in the country, 317,000 are connected with village public telephones ((VPTs) and the remaining villages need to have telephone connections.
According to government estimate, India will require 16 crore telephone connections of which one third, or about 10 crore may not be remunerative. Therefore, they require financial support through USO funding. TRAI will also propose Universal Access Levy to raise USO funds called Universal Service Fund (USF) for compensating the cost of providing VPTs and rural exchange lines, in other words, cost of universal service provision. According to one estimate, USO requirement till the year 2010 will be around 11,000 crore. At present, total telephone sector turnover in the country, including value-added services, stands at Rs 32,000 crore and capital expenditure for a telephone is estimated at Rs 26,000 of which maintenance cost per annum is around 35 per cent. National Telecom Policy 1999 envisages provision of low speed data services to all the villages in the country by 2002 under USO.
Verma said, TRAI is trying to find out whether all new village phones need to or could be upgraded to Public Tele-Info Centres (PTIC) having Internet connectivity by 2002. Envisaging a situation where voice over Internet is permitted in India for ubiquitous telephony services by the Internet service providers (ISPs). "Whether ISPs be asked to discharge their USO, whether they should also contribute to the USF are now being discussed," Verma said. A recent study has shown that average village phone having STD connections earns around Rs 2,700 against only Rs 70 earned by one having no STD.
Therefore, he said, "without STD, village phone has no meaning."
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