Roaming Charges Down by 56%

According to reports, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has announced reduction in roaming charges from 22 percent to 56 percent as compared with the current market rates.

TRAI has fixed roaming charges ceiling on mobile services at Rs 2.40 per minute, and has removed all surcharges and rent during the roaming period.

TRAI has also fixed maximum permissible charges per minute at Rs 2.40 for outgoing National Long Distance (NLD) calls, and minimum at Rs 1.40 for outgoing local calls.

Announcing the cut, TRAI said that there would be a single charge system for roaming. The new roaming charges for cellular phone subscribers will be Rs 1.40 for outgoing local calls, Rs 2.40 for outgoing STD calls, and Rs 1.70 for incoming calls.

Currently, a consumer is charged a rental of Rs 50 for national roaming services. For a GSM subscriber, the charge of an outgoing call can be up to Rs 3.99 per minute, while a CDMA user is charged anywhere between Re 1 and Rs 3.99. And for both users, service operators charge a maximum of Rs 4 for SMS within the country.

TRAI further said that it also wants to do away with the Rs 50 rental and 15 percent surcharge in addition to pruning airtime charges that are currently higher than local mobile call charges. However, charges for SMS continue to be under forbearance.

Reacting to TRAI's move, Dayanidhi Maran, IT and Communications Minister, said that the reduction in roaming charges was essential, and that the companies should pass on the benefits to end consumers.

In a statement, Nripendra Misra, Chairman of TRAI, said that TRAI would closely monitor market developments on roaming, and if perceptible competition evolves in the market, it would revisit the issue and even consider forbearing roaming tariffs. And the competition in the market was not forthcoming, so the regulator had to intervene, as they were sensitive to cost.

TRAI had, earlier this month, held an Open House Discussion in Delhi with all the stakeholders, including national operators and other regional players on "Review of Ceiling Tariffs for Roaming Services".

Meanwhile, the new charges, which would be applicable to all prepaid and postpaid GSM and CDMA mobile customers, will come into effect from February 15 this year.

source" Tech tree