Bharti Group, the largest private cellular operator, on Wednesday welcomed the new interconnection user charge regime announced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India saying it has brought in the uniformity in the structure but expressed concern over its impact in the international long distance arena.

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"The new regime -- IUC and access deficit charge  -- is uniform and this will bring in the much-desired level playing field in the industry...it is a simple format," Akhil Gupta, joint managing director of Bharti Televentures told PTI soon after the announcement of Trai's IUC regime.

He, however expressed concern over reduction in termination charge and a minor hike in carriage charges. "We feel this is inadequate," he added.

Meanwhile, the Cellular Operators Association of India felt that the tariffs for cell-to-cell STD calls between two circles could go up depending on the distance slabs as a direct result of Trai's new regime.

"This is absolutely illegal and unfair. Cellular customers are being made to pay for fixed network which they are not using," T V Ramachandran, director general of COAI said.

Both COAI and Bharti, which is also an ILD operator, felt that the ADC structure on cell originated ISD calls could lead to hike in tariffs and would give an impetus to grey traffic.

Gupta declined to comment on whether there would be any realignment of tariffs.

COAI president Dilip Modi also said that with the new ADC announced by Trai, there might be some negative impact on telecom tariffs in few segments but by and large there should not be any major change.

On the other hand, Association of Basic Telecom Operators raised some concerns about the IUC saying the regulation would lead to private basic operators funding Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, which is a profit making organization, as ADC collected on WLL mobility intercircle (between two circles) calls would be paid to the state-owned corporation and cannot be retained by private operators.

"In case of port charges, in spite of our best efforts we will continue to pay port charges in addition to the IUC regime, which in other means a double charge," ABTO secretary general S C Khanna said.