Taking note of recent media reports, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Friday refuted that the regulator planned to charge users holding multiple SIMs, or mobile connections. <\/p>\n
\u201c…some media houses (print, electronic, and social media) have reported that TRAI has proposed introducing fees for mobile and landline numbers with an aim to ensure the efficient allocation and use of these \u2018finite resources\u2019. The speculation that TRAI intends to impose charges on customers for holding multiple SIMs\/ numbering resources is unequivocally false,\u201d the telecom regulator said in an official statement. <\/p>\n
The regulator termed the claims in media reports as \u201cunfounded\u201d and said they serve only to \u201cmislead the public\u201d. <\/p>\n
The sector watchdog floated a consultation paper on \u2018Revision of National Numbering Plan\u2019 on June 6, 2024, seeking industry views on whether financial disincentives must be imposed on telecom operators if allocated telecommunications identifier (TI) resources remained unused beyond the timeframe. <\/p>\n
TIs refer to the series of digits, characters, and symbols, or their combination, used to uniquely identify a mobile or landline user. The regulator believes that with 5G networks, TIs will have a pivotal role in ensuring efficient telecommunications and network management. <\/p>\n
TRAI\u2019s discussion paper had invited stakeholders to comment on the need for a charging mechanism and possible charges for existing\/newly allocated TI resources to ensure efficient usage. <\/p>\n
One the reasons for floating the paper was that telcos often capitalise on market demand by offering highly coveted numbers at premium prices and resort to auctions to maximise revenues from such allocations. Further, telcos levy charges on subscribers for acquiring these preferred numbers. <\/p>\n
Telecom carriers, in response, cautioned that any move to start collecting fees on sale of numbers would result in additional costs being passed on to subscribers. <\/p>\n
In its latest statement, TRAI said it has consistently advocated minimum regulatory intervention promoting forbearance and the self-regulation of market forces. \u201cWe unequivocally repudiate and emphatically condemn any spurious conjectures that perpetuate the circulation of such misleading information concerning the consultation paper at hand,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n
Separately, the Department of Telecommunications on X (formerly Twitter), tweeted that the speculation that TRAI plans to charge customers for having multiple SIMs or numbering resources is \u201ccompletely false\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese claims are baseless and aim to mislead the public,\u201d the telecom department said in the tweet. <\/p>\n
DoT is presently the custodian of TI resources in India and oversees its allocation for both landline and mobile network in-line with the International Telecommunication Union\u2019s (ITU) global standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taking note of recent media reports, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Friday refuted that the regulator planned to charge users holding multiple SIMs, or mobile connections. \u201c…some media houses (print, electronic, and social media) have reported that TRAI has proposed introducing fees for mobile and landline numbers with an aim to ensure the efficient allocation and use of these \u2018finite resources\u2019. The speculation that TRAI intends to impose charges on customers for holding multiple SIMs\/ numbering resources is unequivocally false,\u201d the telecom regulator said in an official statement. The regulator termed the claims in media reports as \u201cunfounded\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-822473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telecom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}