Roaming rates slashed

Posted on | January 26, 2007 |

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India issued a tariff order substantially reducing the tariffs
for national roaming for mobile subscribers. This would result in reduction of roaming tariffs to the extent of 22% to 56% compared with the current market rates.

• Distance neutral composite ceiling tariffs specified.
• No rental for roaming in any form.
• Mobile operators can not charge any type of fixed or recurring charges for accessing roaming facility, for example, monthly rental, weekly rental , daily rental etc.
• Receiving SMS is free while roaming.
• Maximum permissible per minute charges for roaming calls, irrespective of the terminating networks, and irrespective of tariff plans would be:
  • Rs. 1.40 for outgoing local calls
  • Rs. 2.40 for outgoing NLD calls
  • Rs. 1.75 for incoming calls

The order will become effective on 15th February 2007.

Tidbit: About 10% of the service providers’ revenues come from roaming. (Source: ET)

Reliance does not charge a roaming rental. It has a country wide network and the subscriber always stays on its network while roaming unlike GSM operators where a subscriber of Operator A can use the network of Operator B while roaming.

BSNL doesn’t share its network with roaming users of other GSM operators except MTNL. I am curious to know what roaming rental did BSNL users pay till now.

Comments