New Delhi, Sept. 18 -- To curb unsolicited and spam calls, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has introduced a termination charge of up to 5 paise per minute on Application-to-Person (A2P) calls.

The charge will be paid by the originating access provider to the terminating access provider. However, the actual charge will be decided through commercial negotiations between telecom service providers, with 5 paise per minute prescribed as the maximum limit.

TRAI Chairman Anil Kumar Lahoti said the ceiling was primarily based on the termination charge already prescribed for commercial SMS.

"The exact amount, of course, we have left to the commercial negotiation between the terminating access provider and the originating access...