Call Rates To Get Cheaper From April!

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has slashed tariffs for calls made from any type of phone, fixed or mobile, to any other phone within India, with a 33 per cent reduction in charges operators pay each other. The new rates are effective from 1 April 2009 onwards and are also applicable for 3G voice calls.
Under the new Interconnection Usage Charges (IUC) regime, the telecom regulator has reduced local termination charges (charges payable by your operator to a rival service provider when you call a subscriber on that network) by 33 per cent to 20 paise per minute from 30 paise per minute.

TRAI issued 'Telecommunications Interconnection Usage Charges (Tenth Amendment) Regulations', according to which "termination charge for all types of domestic calls (fixed-to-fixed, fixed-to-mobile, mobile-to-fixed and mobile-to-mobile) has been reduced to 20 paise from 30 paise per minute.

TRAI, however, increased the interconnection charge for international incoming calls from 30 paise at present to 40 paise per minute. However, the regulator expects that the telecom service providers would pass on this benefit in the form of lower tariff for outgoing international calls.

Ceiling on carriage of domestic long distance calls has been retained at 65 paise minute to encourage national long distance operators to expand into rural areas.

"Origination charge has not been specified as it would be residual from tariff after payment of other charges. This would provide service providers flexibility of introducing innovative tariff plans," says the telecom regulator.

The authority also reduced transit/carriage charge from level-II trunk automatic exchange to short distance charging area (SDCA) to 15 paise per minute as against the existing charge of 20 paise per minute. On the other hand, intra SDCA transit charge would be less than 15 paise per minute, down from less than 20 paise per minute.

TRAI also said termination charge for 3G voice calls shall be same as 2G voice calls.