Arun 795 Report post Posted July 18, 2004 Techtree.com Like every budget, the union budget of 2004, has an equal amount of pros and cons for the Telecom industry. The good news is that the prices of mobile handsets have gone down. However, the bad news lies in the fact that, the service charges have risen. Conclusively, mobile phone users have to pay more while paying their mobile phone bills. Different companies and users have varied reactions regarding the Union Budget. Speaking on the Union's decision to raise the FDI limit and exempt MSCs from import duty, Ashish Chowdhary, Country Head - India & South Asia, Nokia Networks, says, "These initiatives will supplement the operators' efforts to build telecom infrastructure across the country and provide affordable services to the masses and help India move quicker towards becoming a wireless dominant country." Other companies like Alcatel, LG and Tata Indicom have also reacted positively to the exemption of import duties. However, it is not yet clear how much the prices of handsets will drop. In this context, Ashish Bakshi, Country Head- India Operations, BenQ, says, "Right now, it is too early to discuss about the extent of drop in price for the handsets as we are still working on it." The proposed price drop will in a way help to minimize the price difference between the handsets available from official and unofficial sources. It is due to exemption of import duties that the official prices of handsets will lessen. About this, Magan Chabbaria, a software programmer says, "I prefer to buy my cell phones from the unofficial market at Heera Panna due to the cheaper price and variety available there. So the budget won't help me as such as the Heera Panna prices will remain the same." Similarly how much the service charges of mobile telephones will increase is not yet clear. In this context mobile phone operators like Reliance Infocomm, Tata Teleservices, BPL Mobiles, Airtel etc. have not commented. However mobile phone users think that ultimately the overall cost of mobile telephony will increase. Abeera Sen, a post-graduate student from Sociology says, "Ultimately the users are losers in this current budget. How many users will buy new phones, which have become cheap, every month? But we have to pay higher mobile phone bills every month. So at the end of the day, we have to pay more, as an outcome of the budget." It is difficult to come to a conclusion as to how the Budget has affected mobile phone users but we can hope that the very near future answers this in the users favour. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
