The Hindu Business Line : Status quo on differential mobile tariffs to continue

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has allowed operators to continue offering lower tariffs to their subscribers compared to rates offered for making calls to users of another operator.

The telecom regulator has taken a position that it need not intervene at this juncture since it needed to study the impact of recent policy changes on tariffs. Therefore, TRAI, will review the issue of allowing differential tariffs to operators after six months.

The TRAI decision would mean that an operator such as Airtel would be allowed to offer a cheaper call rate if the subscriber is making a call to another Airtel subscriber anywhere in the country. Though this scheme is being followed already by most of the operators, TRAI had issued a consultation paper in January seeking a review of the policy. The telecom regulatorsaid that since the consultation paper was issued, the carriage charges had been brought down to a flat fee instead of the earlier distance-based rate system and also the entry norms for National Long Distance licence have been relaxed.

"Recent developments indicate that further liberalisation of the NLD segment with the policy measures mentioned above are likely to impact the way tariffs are set by the telecom service providers particularly for inter-circle calls. These may have implications on the issues for regulatory policy regarding permissibility or otherwise of differential tariffs particularly for inter-circle calls raised in the consultation paper, it is considered appropriate to study the market developments arising out these developments," the Trai note to all operators said.

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