Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the government’s telecom regulatory authority, released a consultation paper titled “Review of existing TRAI Regulations on Interconnection matters” to examine IP-based interconnections among telecom networks and emerging satellite-based telecommunications networks, including 6G networks along with existing 4G and 5G networks.
This consultation paper follows the pre-consultation paper released in April 2025, which aimed to gather stakeholders’ comments on the same subject. TRAI is welcoming comments on this issue by December 8, 2025 and counter-comments by December 22, 2025. Public and concerned entities can send their comments to [email protected].
Why is TRAI reviewing Interconnection Regulations?
For some context, Interconnection networks are the systems and agreements among telecom companies that allow the customers of one telecom operator to connect and communicate with users of another telecom operator. Therefore, for every Jio call to an Airtel user, an interconnection network is required.
In India, interconnection was a major contentious issue. Major disputes erupted during Reliance Jio’s market entry in 2016, when established players such as Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea were accused of delaying or limiting Points of Interconnection (POIs), resulting in massive call failures between Jio and other networks. The incumbents argued that Jio’s high traffic volumes overwhelmed existing infrastructure, while Jio claimed the refusal to provide adequate POIs was anti-competitive.
While acknowledging the recent changes in the Indian telecom sector, particularly the shift towards IP-centric infrastructures, TRAI outlined its reasoning for reforming the interconnection framework, as it has the potential to impact the markets. “These changes could influence market positioning as well as competitive positioning among service providers, potentially affecting the commercial and technical terms of interconnection agreements in the future,” reads the consultation paper.
Traditionally, other than the latest IP-based networks, telecom companies relied on E1-based networks. According to the Paper, an E1 link is a standard digital transmission system used in India, other Asian countries, and Europe. It operates at a speed of 2.048 Mbps and carries data or voice through 32 channels, each with a capacity of 64 Kbps.
Now, the paper explores the possibility of migration to an IP-based framework, which is part of Next Generation Networks (NGN,) which can offer voice, data, and multimedia-related services over a single, IP-based network infrastructure, replacing traditional circuit-switched networks
The Paper also referred to frontier technologies, such as Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), which can replace traditional hardware devices, like routers, firewalls, and load balancers, with software-based versions that run on regular servers or cloud…
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