Costly proposition

New Delhi, June 2: Business houses will have to pay more for leased line through a managed network than the traditional circuit.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today set a higher ceiling tariff for a connection through managed leased line network (MLLN).

MLLN is an integrated, fully managed, digital network platform through which the service provider offers leased line services to business subscribers.

The tariff ceiling for 64 kbps traditional domestic leased circuits for over 500 km is Rs 44,000, while it is Rs 7,000 more at Rs 51,000 for MLLN.

Trai said it has “carefully examined” the additional costs associated with the value-added features of the service. In keeping with the approach of specifying ceiling tariff for traditional leased circuits, those for MLLN have also been specified based on capacity and distance.

In addition to 64 kbps, distance-based tariff ceilings have been specified for capacities of 128 kbps and 256 kbps, while for capacities more than 256 kbps and below 2 mbps, tariff has been kept under forbearance because of low and specialised demand for these capacities, a Trai release said.

Although the price of the modem has been kept under forbearance, the authority has specified that these modems must be provided on rental, with tariff for such equipment based on cost and reasonable recovery period, Trai said.

Trai said it would review the ceiling tariff after a year based on the prevailing market trends and other relevant factors at that time.

This is the first instance when the regulator has made a distinction between leased circuits of the classical kind and those provided through the managed leased line network technology.