New Delhi, Dec. 15 -- Last week, India's telecom regulator proposed cutting the charges operators pay to use a set of airwaves known as microwave spectrum. These airwaves are not used by consumers directly. Instead, they serve as backhaul-connecting mobile towers to the core network so calls, data, video streaming and messaging work seamlessly.

The proposal by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) seeks to rationalise how this backhaul spectrum is priced and assigned, arguing that operators have long been paying disproportionately high charges for what is essentially enabling infrastructure. If accepted by the department of telecommunications (DoT), the changes would lower network rollout costs and offer limited but meaningful...