Trai cuts termination charges on ISD calls; Reliance Jio happy, others not

The telecom regulator said the reduction from 53 paise per minute to 30 paise was being done to curb the 'grey route' which was becoming a menace and posing serious security threat to the country

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Friday reduced the international call termination rate to 30 paise, which is 53 paise now, making calls to India cheaper.

The new rates will be effective on February 1. The regulator pointed out that it was doing so to curb the “grey route”, which was posing a security threat to the country.

Yet the move has been opposed by incumbent telecom operators, which say this will make the ratio between international incoming calls and outgoing calls more skewed.

In 2011 there was one outgoing call from India against five incoming calls, but