TRAI Specifies Access Facilitation Charges for Submarine Cable Landing Stations

Press Information Bureau

Government of India

Ministry of Communications & Information Technology

21-December-2012 15:36 IST

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has today released ‘The International Telecommunication Cable Landing Stations Access Facilitation Charges and Co-Location Charges Regulations, 2012’.

Access Facilitation Charges (AFC) are the charges, which are payable by International Long Distance Operators (ILDO)/ Internet Service Providers (ISP) to the owner of the cable landing station to access the acquired international bandwidth in a submarine cable. Submarine cables provide vital international telecommunication links between countries across the world. Submarine cables terminate in the country through cable landing stations. 

TRAI issued ‘International Telecommunication Access to Essential Facility at Cable Landing Station Regulations’ on 7^th June, 2007. In 2007, with approval of the Authority owner of cable landing stations published the AFC (a) when access is provided at Cable Landing Station and (b) At alternate location when space is not available at CLS. With a view to align AFC with current cost and utilization, TRAI issued consultation paper on 22^nd March, 2012. On the basis of cost data submitted by service providers, TRAI estimated Access Facilitation Charges and issued a consultation paper on “Estimation of Access Facilitation Charges and Co-location Charges at Cable Landing Stations” on 19^th October, 2012 for further comments/counter comments of stakeholders.

On the basis of comments/ counter comments received from stakeholders and further analysis, TRAI today issued the regulations, which will come into effect from 1^st January 2013.  In these regulations, the Authority has specified following Access Facilitation Charges: 

These charges are substantially lower than the prevailing charges and are likely to result in:

· Reduction in the price of International Private Leased Circuits (IPLC) for BPOs/ Call Centers, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and other information technology enabled service providers.

·  Availability of International bandwidth at competitive price to ILDOs/ ISPs for rapid growth of Broadband services.

· International carriage of voice / data at competitive rates.

· Boosting of competition in the International bandwidth segment.

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MV/RK