- Established in 1997
- Established by an Act of Parliament, called the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997
- TRAI is an independent regulator of Telecom Business in India.
- Aims to regulate telecom services, including fixation/revision of tariffs for telecom services which were earlier vested in the Central Government.
- Its mission is to create and nurture conditions for growth of telecommunications in India to enable country to have leading role in emerging global information society.
- It also provides fair and transparent environment that promotes level playing field and facilitates fair competition in the market.
- It also regularly issues orders and directions on various subjects such as tariffs, quality of service, interconnections, Direct To Home (DTH) services and mobile number portability.
- TRAI also fixes or revises the tariffs for telecom services in India.
Telecommunications Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT)
- The TRAI Act was amended by an ordinance, effective from 24 January 2000, establishing a Telecommunications Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) to take over the adjudicatory and disputes functions from TRAI.
- TDSAT was set up to adjudicate any dispute between a licensor and a licensee, between two or more service providers, between a service provider and a group of consumers, and to hear and dispose of appeals against any direction, decision or order of TRAI.