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TRAI pegs monthly WLL rental at Rs 200

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Thursday said the rentals for Wireless in Local Loop has been slashed from Rs 450-Rs 550, fixed last year, to Rs 200 a month.

The rentals will be effective from July 4.

TRAI said it will monitor the situation so that predatory pricing does not take place.

If the handset is provided by the service provider, then the payment for that handset can be taken either as a refundable deposit with a ceiling of Rs 6,000 or an additional monthly rental ceiling amount of Rs 50.

The monthly rental is specified as part of the standard tariff package, which must be mandatory on offer to the customer. In addition, the service provider will be able to offer alternative tariff packages similar to other tariffs of basic services and all other telecom services provided in the market.

This was the result of the first annual review of these rentals by TRAI. When the WLL rentals were announced last year, TRAI had specified that it will conduct annual reviews for each of the next three years to ascertain and specify any changes in the monthly rentals.

The new regime for WLL monthly rentals represents a significant departure from the existing regime. Last year, TRAI had specified a floor and ceiling for WLL monthly rentals in view of the major uncertainty about the underlying costs and the roll-out plans, and the large range for the cost based rentals that were calculated from the data submitted by the service providers.

This year, there is greater certainty regarding costs and other underlying parameters, including roll-out plans.

For instance, it said, costs of one service provider, which had wide presence in the country were based on actual purchase order, and another estimate was based on certified prices offered by the equipment vendors.

"Last year the basic thrust was to encourage efficiency and growth of the service while not giving the incumbent opportunity to use its market dominance and special advantages such as ability to use common infrastructure to prevent growth of competition," it said.

It pointed out that in the current changed scenario wherein the cost estimates of the emerging competitors were already below those of the dominant incumbent, the latter's ability to put competitors at a serious disadvantage seemed restrained.

UNI and PTI

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