New Delhi, May 12: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is in favour of allowing landline and mobile connectivity to Internet service providers (ISP) to lower tariffs for national and international calls.

In a consultation paper released today, Trai sought views from the industry and experts to liberalise the Internet telephony segment.

“Tariffs for long-distance calls can come down drastically if the department of telecom accepts the Trai’s proposal,” Rajesh Chhabria, president of the Internet Service Providers Association of India, told The Telegraph.

According to current licensing provisions, there is no restriction on international PC-to-PC calls through Internet telephony.

However, calls from a computer to a landline or a mobile phone or calls from a landline to another landline routed through a computer using voice-over Internet telephony are not allowed in India.

The Net telephony market is estimated at about 200 million minutes per month, almost half of which is captured by unlicensed players. There are around 10 lakh users of which about two lakh are legal.

“Internet service providers are not allowed to make calls to fixed line and mobile subscribers as they are not permitted to have interconnection with these networks to terminate Internet telephony calls within the country,” Trai said.

Landline and mobile connectivity to ISPs is likely to give subscribers a cheaper option to make long-distance calls and may act as a catalyst in boosting broadband penetration in the country, the regulator recommended in its consultation paper.