The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has reduced the mobile call termination rate by 30 per cent and scrapped the interconnection usage fee for all types of calls made from fixed-line phones.

The termination fee for mobile calls will be cut from INR0.20 ($0.0032) to INR0.14 a minute. The INR0.20 fee for calls from fixed-line phones to a mobile or fixed-line number will be dropped completely. TRAI said it cut the fixed-line termination rate to zero to promote investment in wireline networks, which will be the backbone of the country’s high-speed internet.

Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), welcomed the reduction in the fee mobile operators pay each other to terminate calls on their networks, the Economic Times said.

He noted that smaller operators stand to benefit the most as their costs would go down, and they may pass on part of that to subscribers.

Interconnection usage charges account for about 20 per cent of mobile call tariffs that users pay.

Hemant Joshi, partner at Deloitte Haskins & Sells, however, wasn’t sure about gains for customers. He told the Times: “Since the tariffs in India are the lowest in the world and in view of high spectrum costs and taxes faced by the telecom operators, they may not be able to pass on the benefit of reduced termination charges to the consumer.”

The last termination fee adjustment for local calls was made in 2009. TRAI recently raised the fees on inbound international calls terminating on local networks to INR0.53 from INR0.40 to encourage outbound calls.