New Delhi: Next time you go out of your cellular network and need to avail roaming service, your mobile bills will be much lesser than what you need to pay today.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or Trai on Wednesday announced a cut in national roaming charges by 22 to 56 per cent. The new charges to be effective from February 15.
Announcing the cut, the Trai said there will be a single charge system for roaming from now on. The new roaming charges for cellular phone subscribers will be Rs 1.40 for outgoing local calls, Rs 2.40 for outgoing STD calls and Rs1.70 for incoming calls.
At present, service providers charge a maximum of Rs 3.99 per minute for receiving incoming calls while roaming and Rs 3.09 per minute for outgoing local calls.
Also, the rental for using roaming services has been done away with and incoming SMS would be free while roaming. A surcharge of 15 per cent on air-time while roaming and a separate PSTN charge have also been done away with.
The new tariff would be applicable to all prepaid and postpaid GSM and CDMA mobile customers.
"TRAI would closely monitor market developments on roaming and if perceptible competition evolves in the market, it would revisit the issue and even consider forbearing roaming tariffs," TRAI Chairman Nripendra Misra said.
For the consumer, this may mean over 10 per cent drop in their mobile bills. The Trai move to reduce the roaming charges was bitterly opposed by cellular operators.
The telecom regulatory body says it wants to do away with the Rs 50 rental and 15 per cent surcharge in addition to a pruning of airtime charges which are currently much higher than local mobile call charges.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had earlier in January held an Open House Discussion in Delhi with all the stakeholders including national operators and other regional players on "Review of Ceiling Tariffs for Roaming Services".
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