New Delhi, Sept 21 (UNI) Idea Cellular today described the proposed reduction by the TRAI in the Mobile Termination Charge (MTC) as a body blow to all operators who depend upon fair, equitable, and transparent regulation to encourage and sustain reinvestment in the sector. "The decision will negatively impact the already stressed financial health of the sector, and it is riddled with egregious infirmities," the mobile operator said in a release here. Cost based determination of IUC, which adequately compensate network operators terminating voice traffic, is a well-established settlement principle,it said. The Authority’s verdict to cut IUC to a paltry 6 paisa per minute, determined on the basis of a new cost methodology (Pure LRIC model) which brazenly ignores the stupendously high prices paid for the spectrum, – a key raw material without which mobile telephony services cannot be delivered - compromises this principle, and will negatively impact the already stressed financial health of the sector, the mobile operator said. "In an avowedly technology neutral policy regime, a regulation which should acknowledge both subscriber handsets ownership and incoming calling patterns has, instead, erroneously determined that only one technology benefits," the statement said. The Idea Cellular pointed out that at present, more than 900 million consumers in India rely on established 2G / 3G / 4G (non-VoLTE) networks for accessing voice services, and a majority of these users are located in the rural heartland, and are dependent on the enormous mobile telecom infrastructure investments, to stay connected. A large swathe of these rural sites are predominantly utilized for receiving incoming calls, and even in the erstwhile IUC regime were being subsidized by existing operators. The revised IUC rate further jeopardizes both rural coverage and connectivity, it said. UNI NAZ SW 1851