Std / Isd Call Rates to Fall further as TRAI slashes ADC !

[Arun 795]

Press Trust of India

NEW DELHI:

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is doing some last-minute fine-tuning before announcing the new access deficit charge (ADC) regime, which would slash national long distance and international calling rates.

After a long meeting on the issues, Trai chairman Pradip Baijal said the ADC order may be issued on Wednesday.

The total quantum of ADC is likely to be brought down to a little over Rs 3,000 crore a year, from Rs 5,340 crore per annum now, or lower by about 45%, it is learnt.

ADC is paid by private operators mainly to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd for its rural initiatives. ADC is paid only on national long distance and international calls. For NLD calls, Trai will announce a revenue-sharing format for ADC, a change from the current per-minute model.

The extent of revenue-share for NLD calls is not known yet, but could be in the range of 2% to 3%. On incoming ISD calls, ADC is likely to be Rs 1.50 per minute, down from Rs 3.25 earlier. On outgoing ISD calls, ADC may be 50 paise per minute, down from Rs 2.50 earlier. But, Baijal refused to confirm any of these rates, calling it “industry speculation”. Once the ADC order comes into effect, private operators are expected to announce NLD rate cut on the lines of OneIndia, recently rolled out by MTNL and BSNL. Plus, there will be a significant drop in international tariffs.

Rediff.com

February 22, 2006 17:17 IST

Last Updated: February 22, 2006 17:54 IST

A further drop in long distance call rates is on the anvil with the Department of Telecom deciding to remove a major glitch in the introduction of Carrier Access Code, which would allow telecom subscribers to opt for a long distance operator of their choice.

In an effort to push this, DoT has decided to permit mutually negotiated sharing arrangement of cost for upgradation of interconnecting networks.

This decision is expected to kick-start the so far non-starter CAC, as the present licence agreement provides that the network resources including the cost of upgadation/modifying interconnecting networks to meet the requirements of the service will be undertaken by the operator seeking interconnection.

This was a major sore point as it was seen heavily tilted against the company seeking interconnection, whereas the benefit of this was to go to both sides (terminating provider also). The resistance of BSNL to CAC where it feared loss of customers and revenue on the basis of comeptition, also has delayed the process.

"Mutually negotiated sharing arrangements for cost of upgradation and modifying networks between services providers will be permitted," officials of DoT said.

About the CAC, the order was issued in 2002, but it did not happen since then. The CAC is a dialer code that allows users to access the network of a long distance service provider of their choice to make calls.

The regulator TRAI had also issued directions regarding the implementation of call by call and carrier pre-selection.

But this has so far not been enforced on private operators as BSNL itself had not come forward on this.

DoT was also aware that system modification in the switches of Access Providers is required to enable them to implement Carrier Selection for STD and ISD services in their networks and the set-up cost for this upgradation needs to contributed by STD/ISD operators. Since the upgradation cost was on the higher side, no STD/ISD operators came forward to contribute to the access providers.

In fact, when DoT lowered the revenue-share and entry fee of STD and ISD players in November last year to introduce competition, it was felt that without CAC, there is no meaning of competition in this segment.

[BPP 0]

Press Trust of India

TRAI slashes levy to BSNL; STD/ISD charges to drop

NEW DELHI, FEB 23, 2006

Paving the way for a further reduction in long distance call tariffs, telecom regulator TRAI today announced substantial changes in norms for a levy paid by private operators to BSNL, which may now suffer an annual revenue loss of Rs 1,800 crore.

Immediately after the announcement of the new norms, wherein the Access Deficit Charge on domestic traffic would be on revenue sharing basis instead of call duration, TRAI Chairman Pradeep Baijal exuded confidence that "we are expecting tariff to come down following the new regime.

"However, we can't say by how much (it would drop) as tariffs are market driven." On the international traffic, ADC has been slashed to Rs 1.60 and Rs 0.80 per minute on incomming and outgoing calls (ISD) and the complete package for domestic and international calls would reduce the levy payable to BSNL by other operators from an estimated Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 3,200 crore.

In a major decision, TRAI has fixed a ceiling on carriage charges for domestic long distance calls (STD) at Rs 0.65 per minute. This may reduce the STD charges in distance beyond 50 kms but could increase tariffs for 0-50 km segment as the earlier carriage charges were Rs 0.20 per minute.

Explaining rationale for lowering ADC on ISD calls (both incoming and outgoing), TRAI said this would result in reduction in arbitrage and hence the grey market.

One of the ILD operators, however, objected to double taxation for them as TRAI has included revenue from ILD traffic in the revenue, which has been taxed at the rate of 1.5 per cent.

TRAI has retained the termination charges at Rs 0.30 per minute in both mobile and fixed line phones. The regulator also exempted inclusion of revenue from rural operations of operators in the total earnings on which ADC has been levied at the rate of 1.5 per cent.

The new regime would come into effect from March 1, this year.

On ADC to be phased out completely, TRAI reiterated that "ADC should ideally be merged with the Universal Service Obligation (USO) regime over the time say in about 3-5 years meaning ADC should become zero by fiscak 2008-09." To achieve this, ADC has been reduced to two-third of Rs 4,800 crore to Rs 3,200 crore annually.

Commenting on the carriage charges, which have been fixed as a ceiling at Rs 0.65 per minute, TRAI said: "We are aware that this ceiling limit is higher than value of Rs 0.20 per minute fixed for calls upto 50 kms in the existing regime and there may be a tendency for some operators to charge this higher amount.

"One alternative before the TRAI was to prescribe a new ceiling for distance up to 50 km. The other alternative was that should such a situation arise, competitive forces will encourage other operators to set up infrastructure to cover such distances.

"Therefore, TRAI has decided to retain only one distance independent ceiling for carriage charge. The situation will be kept under observation and if required, a review will be carried out," the regulator said.

[JUKU 0]

Does it mean.. the old schemes like Unlimited STD etc... will return or what??

Edited February 23, 2006 by JUKU

[Puneet 0]

Yes. They might. In fact this opens up the mobile sector for unlimied STD too, which was not possible in the previous ADC regime. Let us see what and how much the service providers offer to the customers.

[SexyGurl 0]

Yes, unlimited STD should now be offered on mobile phones.

I can only hope something like Rs. 600/- per month for unlimited R2R gets offered ! -- though it's more like a wish, than something I think will actually happen

[sajokj 8]

Dont worry Anil is cooking some thing for us

[linuxguy 0]

what about the local calls? Will we see prices fall in local calling rates? I am currently paying Rs.1 for m2m and Rs.2 for m2ll

[SexyGurl 0]

Anil is easily much more money-minded than Mukesh.

See how cleanly he withdrew the highly popular 440 unlimited local R2R card ... and all those people (who used to pay 440), are now paying much more (eg. 495 card) .... and still able to talk only for limited period, upto their talktime.

He also withdrew the 770 card .... though, there always was a fighting chance to make the courts accept FWP as a landline phone.

I do get a feeling that Anil is not going to offer anything cheap, than, what the rest of the competition (from BSNL, Airtel, Tata, Hutch etc.) will force him to.

(Needless, all of us RIM subscribers were better off with better tariffs while Infocomm was being fed with huge profits from Reliance's pertroleum business). Now we'll have to pay the tariffs driven by a businessman's profit motive. (and mercifully, we hope, the competition will keep this guy in check).

Edited February 23, 2006 by SexyGurl

[ashoksoft 83]

If not ... we will soon have ... hutchweb.com / airtelweb.in etc and there we will shout all possible gun-gaans of Anil !!

[Arun 795]

Reliance Infocomm hails new ADC regime

New Delhi, Feb 23

- Zee News

Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Infocomm today hailed the reduction in overall levy paid by operators to state-owned BSNL, saying the move would help increasing the telecom growth in the country.

"We are happy that levy (access deficit charge) on both incoming and outgoing international traffic has been reduced and this will go long way in the growth of the sector," Reliance spokesperson said.

They, however, declined to comment on whether company would offer revised tariffs in view of new ADC regime announced by telecom regulator TRAI.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Looks as though there would be a boquet of new offers from various proivders soon because of this. Here's what Idea offers now...

Idea Cellular offers first 2-minutes free on outgoing calls

New Delhi, Feb 23:

Within hours of telecom regulator TRAI announcing new norms for levy paid by operators to BSNL, private cellular operator Idea has offered free outgoing calls for first two minutes for its pre-paid subscribers.

discuss more about Idea's new offer here

[abc123 0]

In view of reduction in ADC charges frm 1st March will there be reduction in the tarrif charges frm 1st march, any inside news guys..............................................

[BPP 0]

How come reliance is the last one to announce new tarrifs...

[abc123 0]

HAS anyone announced the new tarrif yet

[KumaarShah 143]

Everyone is waiting for the other to announce their schemes and tariffs so that they can introduce something better.

We now have to see who takes the lead in announcing new plans.

Reliance has over the last six months to one year has become over cautious and is playing the role of follower rather than being a leader. It is indeed sad that India's biggest telecom company has been reduced to this level.

Hope Reliance takes the initiative and announces their plans first.

[rajeshkatiyar 3]

Dear friend

when Executives run the company instead of boss

they become cautious and do not take bold steps

we still remember incoming free and Rs 500

scheme days. Now please forget this all

[@ksh@T 20]

well every one is waiting and seeing the faces of others that who offers what new...and then they will follow the SUIT...llike airtel launched lifetime first and ...now BAAD aa gayee gai

[abc123 0]

Finally thres some cut in tarrifs by Airtel but no use for all...........The only benficial is whio paying above 2.40 for std, they have reduce it by 25p so peoople who used to pay 2.64 for std will now charge 2.40 and yes for ISD huge reduction

[KumaarShah 143]

all operators incl. reliance have ganged-up and are not going to offer any reduction. FYI, even MTNL/BSNL is part of this game as they also have not reduced anything.

[Rohit Rocker 0]

Hello,

The IDEA offer seems to be a stupid idea. A prson making an STD call can call for under 2 minutes and then disconnect before 2 minutes get over. Then call again and talk more for about 2 minutes or less. In this way, one can talk unlimited on STD calls without paying anything. So whats the catch? How much do the have to pay monthly?

[akg7091 4]

for the std + local option it is rs 2001 monthly

[shashank 8]

It is Rs.2000/month with 200 as talktime.It is really foolish.

[Arun 795]

well, it seems BSNL themselves have taken the initiative of tariff cut inspite of the ADC cut !

BSNL slashes international call rates

- Rediff.com

March 08, 2006 19:00 IST

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited on Wednesday slashed international long distance call rates to Rs 6 a minute, with 10 seconds pulse, for users opting OneIndia tariff plan.

Under the new tariffs, ISD rates to the US, UK and Canada would be Rs 6 per minute (10 second pulse) against the rate of Rs 7.20 per minute under other plans, BSNL said.

Similarly, the rates for Europe (other than UK), Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong will now be Rs 8 a minute with 7.5 second pulse as against the existing Rs 9.60 a minute.

To the rest of the world, the rates would be Rs 10 per minute with six seconds pulse as against Rs 12 earlier. The rates have come into effect from March 1.

"The new ISD rates are 17 per cent lower than the rates offered by BSNL under other tariff plans in both fixed and mobile segment," BSNL said.

The company also claimed that the rates offered by BSNL are the "lowest in the market". Further, the rates offered by other operators are on per minute basis and work out to about 20-25 per cent higher when compared to BSNL rates.