Price War-Tariff Reductions By Most Operators

[Chirag 5]

BSNL slashes cellular tariff by 60%

August 27, 2004 18:19 IST

Rediff.com

In what could trigger a major price war among telecom service providers, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam on Friday slashed its cellular tariff by up to 60 per cent.

Announcing a major revision in charges for various services provided by it, BSNL Chief V P Sinha said STD charges would also stand reduced by up to 33 per cent.

Hutch joins price war, cuts pre-paid rates

August 26, 2004 19:39 IST

Rediff.com

Joining the price war with Reliance and AirTel in the pre-paid segment, Hutch on Thursday introduced lowest local call rates of 99 paise to any other mobile but slapped a fixed charge of Rs 25 per month.

The main difference is that Hutch has allowed lower tariffs to be applicable to other mobile networks as well, while AirTel and Reliance had lowered the existing local and STD rates within their own networks.

Hutch has also lowered STD tariffs through a special promotion of Rs 2.25 a minute to all mobiles and fixed phones with a monthly charge of Rs 25.

Hutch has also reduced local call rates to Rs 1.99 a minute from the existing Rs 2.75 to all mobile and fixed phones.

While on STD calls, the company has kept the tariffs unchanged for mobile-to-mobile, in the case of calls to fixed phones it has lowered it to Rs 2.99 from the existing range between Rs 2.99 to Rs 4.99 a minute.

AirTel had slashed its local call tariffs by 60 per cent to Re 1 per minute from Rs 2.49 within its network while increasing the STD tariff to any other mobile and WLL phone to Rs 3.25 a minute from the existing rate of Rs 2.99.

Reliance Infocomm Ltd also had announced reduction in pre-paid tariffs by 60 per cent under which local and intra-circle calls from Reliance IndiaMobile to any other Reliance phones had been reduced to 99 paise per minute from Rs 2.49 per minute.

STD rates on AirTel-to-AirTel have also been cut to Rs 2 per minute from Rs 2.99, making it cheaper than fixed line.

For STD calls to fixed line operators, AirTel had hiked tariffs to Rs 3.25 for a distance slab of 50 to 200 km. But for other distance slabs of 200 to 500 km and above 500 km, the STD rate has been reduced to Rs 3.25 per minute.

In the case of Reliance, calls originating from Reliance pre-paid to other GSM and landline phones would be charged at a flat rate of Rs 1.79 per minute.

Inter-circle calls from RIM pre-paid to other Reliance handsets of fixed wireless phones and fixed wireless terminals anywhere in the country would now cost only Rs 1.79 per minute, down from Rs 2.99 per minute.

Calls to other GSM operators and landline has been reduced to Rs 2.49 per minute.

The new Hutch flat rates will be available to Orange pre-paid users as well.

"We have simplified the pre-paid tariff structure by introducing a flat rate to any local mobile phone. We are also increasing the affordability of a mobile pre-paid connection compared to fixed lines.

"The flat rate for STD calls irrespective of the distance is also strong incentive for preferring a Hutch connection over a fixed line", Harit Nagpal, chief marketing officer Hutch, said.

Airtel reduces prepaid local call rates by 60%

BS Economy Bureau in New Delhi | August 25, 2004 10:57 IST

Rediff.com

Airtel, India's leading mobile service provider on Tuesday reduced its prepaid tariffs on local calls by 60 per cent and STD calls by a third for Airtel to Airtel callers.

Local calls to a fixed line and to other mobile phones have been reduced by up to 25 per cent. As per the new tariffs, local call rates from Airtel prepaid to any other Airtel mobile have been slashed to Re 1 per minute from the present Rs 2.45 per minute.

Customers can now call any other Airtel mobile in the country at only Rs 2 per minute. Airtel has also introduced a simplified uniform rate for STD calls to any fixed line phone in the country.

A call made to any fixed line phone would now be charged at Rs 3.25 per minute, irrespective of the distance, the company said in a release issued on Tuesday. The new tariffs would be rolled out between 25th and 26th August across all circles and be applicable to both new and existing customers on payment of a nominal one-time charge of Rs 50.

The charge would be waived for new customers registering before September 30.

"We believe that these tariffs will catalyse a steep growth in the mobile category. The tariffs so introduced are simple and are aimed at providing best value to our customers," said Manoj Kohli, president Mobility, Bharti Tele Ventures Ltd, while announcing the tariffs.

The company has an aggregate of 8.73 million customers as on 31 July 2004 and offers services in sixteen out of 23 circles in India.

NOW WAITING FOR RELIANCE to get going!

[deepu 0]

How the pre-paids ring

Janaki Krishnan & Hemangi Balse in Mumbai | August 31, 2004

Rediff.com

At a time when prices of everything are going up, it's a major relief to find cellphone operators slashing rates for both local and long distance calls for pre-paid customers.

Reliance Infocomm started it all on August 13 by wielding the machete on tariffs, bringing it down by 60 per cent. Other players had no option but to follow suit.

So what are the new rates like in terms of savings and services?

According to Hutchison Essar, users opting for its new tariff will be charged a monthly fee of Rs 25 per subscription. Airtel's tariffs are applicable to both new and existing customers on the payment of a nominal one-time activation charge of Rs 50.

However, Airtel has said that customers would also get Rs 50 off on AirTel-to-AirTel SMS as a 'plan welcome benefit'. Therefore, this service is virtually free.

For new customers this charge is waived off up to September 30, 2004. The new Airtel rates are effective from August 25.

The Tariffs: Let us take up local calls first. At present, Hutch charges Rs 2.75 per minute for calls made to all mobile services and non-mobile services. The new rate (that is for those paying Rs 25 per month) will be Re 0.99 per minute to all mobile phones and Rs 1.99 per minute to non-mobile phones (fixed lines).

Those who do not pay Rs 25 per month will still be able to make calls to both fixed and mobile phones at Rs 1.99 per minute.

Airtel's rates are slightly more complicated. Local calls from Airtel to Airtel are billed at Rs 1 per minute against the current Rs 2.75 per minute.

Airtel to any other cell phone will cost Rs 2.25 per minute against the existing Rs 2.75 per minute. A call from an Airtel phone to a fixed line number will also cost Rs 2.25 per minute, which is a reduction of 25 per cent. The other major player, BPL Mobile, is yet to join the rate war.

Long-distance or STD calls: Hutch has said that STD calls from Hutch to all other mobile phones and non-mobile phones will be at Rs 2.25 per minute irrespective of the distance.

This is for those who subscribe. For the non-subscribers too, the rates have been simplified and will be at a flat Rs 2.99 per minute irrespective of whichever phone you make a call to and whatever be the distance.

Airtel has also cleaned up its STD rates. Airtel to Airtel rates will now be Rs 2 per minute; calls from Airtel to a fixed line numbers will be billed at Rs 3.25 per minute, regardless of the distance.

At present the latter rate varies between Rs 2.99 to Rs 4.99 per minute depending upon the distance. The rate for calls from Airtel to any other mobile phone is also Rs 3.25 per minute.

Some caveats: Airtel's new tariffs apply to all, including WLL numbers. Hutch, however, has qualified that "any other mobile phone" means those starting with the number '9'.

This, in turn, means that the new tariffs are not applicable for calls made from Hutch phones to Reliance Infocomm phones.

Hutch also requires the subscriber to send an SMS saying that he wants to avail of the offer. Airtel assumes that a pre-paid customer would be glad to avail of their service and an SMS is required only if the subscriber does not want to avail of the offer.

Reliance India Mobile already charges Re 0.99 per minute for calls within the same circle made from one Reliance phone to another. Inter-circle calls to other mobile phones and fixed line numbers attract a tariff of Rs 1.79 per minute.

Long-distance or intra-city RIM to RIM calls attract a charge of Rs 1.79 per minute. To all other phones, the rate levied is Rs 2.49 per minute.

Now let us see how these rates compare with the standard STD rates. Last week, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd anounced that it would be reducing its peak STD rates to a flat Rs 2.40 per minute, against the prevailing Rs 3.60 per minute.

The new rates are effective from September 10, 2004. BSNL's intra-circle STD calls (within Haryana or Maharashtra, for example) will also cost a maximum of Rs 1.20 a minute, down from Rs 1.80.

Fixed line subscribers of BSNL will have to pay Rs 1.60 per minute for making calls within the same circle to mobile phones other than BSNL's CellOne service.

CellOne's pre-paid customers will pay just 90 paise per minute for cell-to-cell calls within a circle, down from Rs 2.20 at present. For inter-circle calls, they will pay Rs 2 per minute instead of the current Rs 2.40.

For calls to landlines, CellOne subscribers will pay Rs 1.20 a minute, within a circle instead of Rs 2.40. For inter-circle calls over 500 km, the call will cost Rs 2.40.

International call rates are the same for Airtel & Bharti, hovering between Rs 16.99 per minute to Rs 19.99 per minute. Bharti also has a Rs 40 per minute slab for specific countries. The pulse rate is 60 seconds for both.

Edited August 31, 2004 by Chirag

[Chirag 5]

AirTel slashes post-paid tariff

August 31, 2004 19:14 IST

Rediff.com

AirTel on Tuesday announced new mobile tariffs for post-paid subscribers, slashing local tariff on AirTel-to-AirTel network to Re 1.

For availing the same local tariff for making call to any another mobile network (like from AirTel to Hutch, Idea et cetera), the subscribers would have to pay Rs 25 extra per month.

Under this plan, local call to fixed phones and WLL would cost Rs two. The monthly rental has been fixed at Rs 150, an AirTel release said.

The STD calls would cost Rs 2 a minute on AirTel-to-AirTel and Rs 3 to other networks.

In another 'Local and STD Pack' scheme, AirTel has offered all STD calls at Rs 2 per minute, but with an extra Rs 75 per month besides Rs 150 rental.

Local and STD Pack includes advantages of both local and STD calls.

Last week, BSNL had slashed its cellular tariffs by up to 40 per cent to as low as 80 paise with a pulse of just 15 seconds and STD calls costing Rs 1.80 a minute.

The new tariffs have already come into effect.

[Arun 795]

Telecom tariffs to be stable now: Ambani

Press Trust of India / New Delhi September 1, 2004

Amid the ongoing tariff war in the telecom sector, Reliance Infocomm chief Mukesh Ambani today said there would be no significant change in the ruling tariff structure.

Mukesh Ambani, however, said that Reliance Infocomm was looking at a growth rate ranging between 20-25%.

"Total value to the consumer is more important than price alone. It is only one important component for the industry," he said in New Delhi today.

Evading a direct reply when asked whether the price war would see a further dip in tariffs, Ambani told a private TV channel that he saw continuity in generating more value-added services like low cost electronic security and GPS services for customers besides growing partnership between various industries.

He said Reliance was "on track" and would post a growth of about 20-25%. "In India on the whole, I see an incremental growth for the industry," Ambani added.

To a question, he suggested using exchange rate as a tool to fight inflation.

"On the export front, we should remain competitive. Exchange rate can be used as a tool to fight inflation and also be competitive in export market," he said.

Terming the automobile sector as the "mother industry", he said India's auto industry has come of age and was a major force not only in the region but around the world.

"We believe auto industry drives the mainstream economy and inter-connects all segments of industry. It unbundles opportunities for others in sectors like polyster, plastic, synthetic rubber, steel and infromation technology," he said when asked what brought him to the automobile convention being held here.

[Sanay 0]

It's a matter of seconds: BPL tests market pulse

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 01, 2004 06:29:53 PM ]

MUMBAI: There’s good news for consumers. Just when the tariff war seemed to be petering out, BPL Mobile has upset the applecart. BPL has introduced a ‘one-second pulse rate’.

The pulse rate is the rate at which calls are charged. Currently, the pulse rate is a minute, so you are charged Rs 1, 2 or 3 for every minute that you talk.

With a one-second pulse rate, you end up paying only for what you use. In the case of a 60-second pulse rate, you pay the full rate of Rs 1/2 per minute, as the case may be, even if you speak only for a few seconds.

With a lower pulse rate, the advantage is that you need not track the talktime. The rate cut announced by BPL Mobile today could change the tariff structure since it has introduced the one second pulse as against the prevailing 60 seconds pulse.

BPL has announced a special rate of 1 paise per second for calls to mobile phones on payment of an additional monthly charge of Rs 25. There is, in addition, a fixed charge of 60 paise per call so as to recover interconnection charges and other costs.

For those not wanting the special rates (not paying Rs 25), the tariff will be 2 paise per second for all calls for postpaid users and 3 paise per second for all calls for prepaid users.

However, here the rental for the post-paid user is Rs 175 per month as against the Rs 150 per month charged by other operators. For the prepaid user, the rental is in line with that charged by other operators.

Krishna Angara, executive VP-Business Operations, BPL Mobile, described the one-second pulsing as “being fair and honest to subscribers.” A normal business conversation lasts for 25-30 seconds while a social conversation lasts for 2-2.5 minutes.

“With a one-second pulse, the customer only pays for what he uses. We are hoping to increase the talktime of the customer as also attract a larger number of customers,” said Mr Angara. Other operators pooh-poohed the BPL move saying that usual conversations were about a minute long in which case the BPL Mobile tariff actually worked out to be more expensive.

Calculations show that the BPL Mobile tariffs will lead to cheaper calls except in case of calls that are more than 40 seconds and less than or equal to 60 seconds.

Such calls will cost 41 paise- 60 paise, depending on the duration. Add to that the 60 paise fixed charge and the total cost works out to Rs 1.01-1.20 for the call, against the 99 paise-Re 1 per minute call rate of rivals. However, apart from this aberration, it would be cheaper to call from a BPL Mobile phone compared to any other operator.

For instance, a 61-second call will cost 61 paise, plus fixed charges of 60 paise in the case of BPL Mobile, but will cost Rs 1.98-2 in case of other operators as even a one-second increase will be counted as a second call.

[Chirag 5]

Very Honest Tariff Plan!! Pay 60p as IUC in addition to wht u talk! I Liked their way! Wht say?

Finally, a 'pay as you use' mobile plan

Mansi Kapur in Mumbai | September 02, 2004 10:02 IST

Rediff.com

A new war is being fought on the Mumbai telecom turf. For the first time, BPL Mobile introduced a one-second pulse rate in the cellular telephony market.

The service provider moved to the new slab from the existing 60 seconds while announcing a new tariff card from Wednesday.

While BPL's prepaid subscribers will be charged a standard tariff of 3 paise per second for local calls, post-paid subscribers will be charged a flat rate of 2 paise per second for all local calls.

However, all subscribers will have to shell out 60 paise as IUC (interconnect usage charge, usually paid by the operator to either MTNL or BSNL) for every call they make.

This means the prepaid scheme will cost Rs 2.40 per minute - much above the Airtel and Hutch plans, which charge you about Rs 2 per minute.

However, the BPL scheme is cheaper compared with rivals till the 46th second of a one-minute call. After that, it is costlier than Airtel or Hutch till 120 seconds.

From 121 seconds onwards, it is again cheaper than the other two till 180 minutes, at which point, the BPL tariff is exactly the same as the Airtel or Hutch tariff. The BPL plan will be cheaper by 20 paise every next minute hereon.

There is more. Both the pre-paid and the post-paid subscribers can avail of a special scheme at a monthly cost of Rs 25, wherein calls to all GSM mobiles will be charged at 1 paise per second.

The post-paid customers of BPL will continue to pay a monthly rental of Rs 175. This is more than what Airtel and Hutch charge -- Rs 150.

A one-minute post-paid call on BPL will cost Rs 1.80 per minute to all types of phones, while charges for the same call on a Hutch are lower at Rs 1.69. On the other hand, an Airtel-to-Airtel call is cheaper at Re 1, but an Airtel to other phone is costlier at Rs 2 per minute.

Industry observers said, "This is the first time that the `pay as you talk' regime has come into effect. Eventually all the service providers will move on to this sort of a system."

"Our tariffs are compliant with the guidelines set by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Currently tariffs from cellular operators no longer require prior approval from TRAI and in line with the industry practice, we have already filed the tariff with TRAI," Angara pointed out.

Krishna Angara, executive vice president, business operations, BPL Mobile said, "We want to offer a customised service to our consumer. We believe that it is fair to charge the consumer only for the actual usage and not more."

STD rates to all types of phones have also been slashed by the company to Rs 2.99 per minute. This gets reduced further to Rs 2.25 per minute, if one pays a monthly fee of Rs 25.

BPL has also retained its old pulse rate of 60 seconds for subscribers who do not wish to switch over to the new system.

"Although we do expect some amount of decline in our average revenue per user due these new pulse rates, we expect to compensate by bagging more subscribers," Angara said.

The company has also put in place a new billing system to comply with the new pulse rates and tariffs, he added.

[Chirag 5]

Lol, I guess our good old MTNL hit very hard this time! Kudos, am waiting for October 2!

80p/min! MTNL offers lowest cell rates

Rediff.com | September 08, 2004 19:18 IST

State-owned Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd on Wednesday announced the lowest cellular tariff of 80 paise a minute for post-paid users within its own network and Rs 1.20 to other cellular phones with a monthly rental of only Rs 100.

The company has also lowered STD charges to a flat rate of Rs 2.40 a minute irrespective of distance and network, an effective reduction of 50 per cent in highest distance slab.

"We are not levying any hidden cost like additional monthly subscription charges. Even in pre-paid category, our customers would be at advantage as they get Rs 240 worth of talktime in a Rs 324 card," MTNL chairman R S P Sinha said.

The new tariffs for pre-paid users has been proposed at 90 paise a minute within its own network and Rs 1.50 on other phones.

For calls on fixed network and WLL phones, MTNL has announced Rs 1.50 a minute for pre-paid users and Rs 1.20 for post-paid subscribers.

In another customer friendly move, MTNL has reduced the tariffs for fixed-line subscribers while making calls to cell phones by way of increasing the pulse duration to 90 seconds from 60 seconds now.

Sinha also said that capacity in the GSM-based cellular services has been expanded to meet the growing demand. The new tariffs will come into effect from October 2.

[Ashokjp 15]

Not only MTNL, Airtel and many others are lowering their rates..

Airtel is having a new offer for 150 plan users to migrate to a new Airtel One Plan

Under which local calls to their network will be @ rs 1 and std @ Rs 2

and to other phone local call will be @ rs 2 and std @ rs 3

[Vishal Gupta 4]

YEH KYA HO RAHA HAI?

BHAIYA

YEH KYA HO RAHA HAI?

[Ashokjp 15]

One thing is true, from the time Reliance came GSM operators are on their way decreasing tariff rates and introducing offers to sustain their customer strength

[biosbhai 0]

Reliance infocomm is the core reason for the price drops.....

[Chirag 5]

MTNL slashes STD tariffs

September 16, 2004 17:17 IST

Last Updated: September 16, 2004 17:21 IST

Rediff.com

Rewarding its customers, the Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd on Wednesday announced a steep reduction in STD tariffs for its subscribers in Delhi and Mumbai in which STD calls between fixed line customers of these two metros would be charged at a flat tariff of Rs 1.90 a minute.

The public sector telecom unit recently announced a cut in tariffs effective from October including flat rate of STD charges of Rs 2.40 for all STD calls, a company statement said.

The step to reduce tariff between Mumbai and Delhi has been taken as a special measure.

The rates are applicable from October 2.