Roaming @ Rs 1.99/min

APRIL 27, 2005 : MUMBAI: Mobile users rejoice. Operators on Tuesday announced a drop in roaming airtime rates to Rs 1.99 per minute from Rs 3 per minute. The reduced tariffs will come into effect from May 1, ’05.

Mumbai-based cellular major Hutch, announced a new zero rental plan for post-paid users under which the customer gets talktime equal to the full value of the monthly charges. Besides this, calls and SMS (text messages) within the Hutch network can be made at a special charge of 50 paise per minute. Calls to other mobile networks or fixed lines would cost anything between Rs 1.69 per minute to 75 paise per minute, depending on the plan.

The final rate payable by roaming customers is likely to be higher due to the access deficit charge surcharge of 30 paise and the interconnect usage charges that varies from 30 paise upwards depending on the nature of the call.

A drop in roaming rates comes at a time when it was expected that these would increase, after Trai’s announcement that all calls from national roaming subscribers would be treated as STD calls, while those of global roaming users will be accounted as incoming international calls for ADC calculation.


Trai had imposed an access deficit charge of 30 paise only on intra-circle (local) calls originated by a national roaming subscriber (while roaming outside his home network) and terminating in a mobile phone in visited service area.

The new roaming rates were announced by Airtel and Hutch on Tuesday. The BPL Mobile spokesperson said that they would match the tariffs announced by the other operators.

Hutch has pointed out that the timing of the drop would help a large number of subscribers who may be holidaying in places far away from home during the summer vacations.

Interestingly, Airtel attributed the drop in roaming tariffs as Bharti’s contribution towards the vision of ‘One India & lower roaming tariffs, envisaged by Dayanidhi Maran, Hon’ble Minster of Communication & IT.

Sunil Mittal, Chairman & Group MD, Bharti Tele-Ventures, said, This reduction in the roaming rate will expand the roaming community in India and help realise the vision of 200m mobile subscribers by ’07.


Sourse : Economictimes