Amid Wider IUC Debate, TRAI Fixes Ring Time For Mobiles At 30 Seconds, Landlines At 60 Seconds As Telecos Trade Charges

Telecom regulator TRAI on Friday (1 November) fixed phone call ring time at 30 seconds on mobiles and 60 seconds for landline phones, introducing such a time limit for the first time.

This is the ringer time in case the call is neither answered nor rejected by the subscriber.

"The time duration of alert for an incoming voice call, which is neither answered nor rejected by the called party, shall be thirty seconds for Cellular Mobile Telephone Service and sixty seconds for Basic Telephone Service," TRAI said in an amendment to quality of service norms for basic telephone service and cellular mobile telephone service.

The need for time limit came after Reliance Jio accused old operators, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, of "illegally" masquerading wire-line numbers as mobile numbers for "undue enrichment" .

Bharti Airtel has hit back, saying Jio is trying to misguide the regulator ahead the consultation on call connect charges (also called interconnect usage charges).

Telecom operators, on their own, were reducing incoming call ring time to attract call-back call from a subscriber of other networks.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)