good news

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From April 1, local and STD calls from mobile phones could cost less.Telecom watchdog Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday directed cellular operators to cut termination charges by up to 33 per cent to 20 paise per minute. Termination charges are paid by the telecom operator on whose network the call originates to the operator on whose network the call ends.The domestic termination charges will include all types of calls like mobile to fixed, mobile to mobile, fixed to fixed and fixed to mobile with the new termination rates being 20 paise as compared to 30 paise at present. Trai expects the operators to pass on these benefits to the consumers.However, the termination charges for incoming international calls would be 40 paise per minute against the existing charge of 30 paise per minute.The authority assumes that the service providers would pass on this benefit in the form of lower tariff for outgoing international calls.Telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular and others can charge foreign telcos more for terminating overseas calls in India. These companies can charge foreign operators 33 per cent more for incoming calls that terminate in India.At present, three minutes of overseas calls are received for every minute of ISD traffic sent out. So far operators have been of the opinion that a high number of incoming overseas calls should be utilised to earn forex.Telcos also point out that an increase in termination rates for international calls will not have any negative impact on domestic consumers and additional revenues earned from local calls would be used to lower STD rates.Trai noted, “Such an interconnection usage charges (IUC) regime would ensure that all service providers are able to gain access, on reasonable terms and conditions, to the interconnection facilities and services necessary to provide efficient service to their own customers.” Keeping up with its motive to boost rural telephony, the regulator has retained the ceiling on carriage of domestic long distance calls at 65 paise per minute. Non-reduction of this ceiling would encourage national long distance operators to expand into rural areas.Trai said that it has not specified the origination charge in order to provide more flexibility to the operators for offering innovative tariff schemes.

 

[swaps22]

Good news:thumbsup:

 

[Nuxer]

Thanks for the information.

 

[kwaan]

but people like me calling from overseas to India will prob see a rise in cost....

 

[jdjain2]

I do not think ,It will effect much Because Bsnl already provide cheapest call @50 paisa at no extra cost, if the rates comes down to 40 paisa then not a big deal, Now i am happy with bsnl , it networks improves very well , now no network busy and no call drop ,

---------- Post added at 10:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:55 PM ----------

Bsnl really need to come fast with Bsnl 3G and Bsnl Evdo 3G technology , I think in June Bsnl will launch CDMA mobile service + Evdo enabled