Bsnl May Hike Phone Tariffs, Rentals

[deepu 0]

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited on Tuesday said there was a possibility of increasing the rentals and call charges of fixed line phones, even in the rural areas, to make up for losses due to lowering of levy rates announced by telecom regulator TRAI recently.

"We are looking at some re-arrangements to compensate for the loss to the tune of Rs 1,254 crore (Rs 12.54 billion) due to lowered Access Deficit Charge. The options include upward revision in the monthly rentals, increasing call charges and reducing free calls," BSNL CMD A K Sinha said.

BSNL offers telecom services across the country except in Delhi and Mumbai where the services are offered by MTNL. Asked if the corporation would be able to make these changes as the issue was politically sensitive, Sinha said: "We have written to the Department of Telecom listing out detailed analysis of the new ADC regime including its impact and the options available with us."

There are about 16 million village telephones on which the rental varied between Rs 50 to 100 per month and on top of that there were free calls, Sinha quipped and pointed out that cost based rental comes to about Rs 362 a month.

BSNL has been charging Rs 1.20 for a three-minute call as against TRAI's prescribed Rs 1.20 for a two-minute call.

Sinha also said that loss of Rs 1,254 crore due to new ADC rates could impact BSNL's future investment programme.

[rakesh5295 0]

Not again. once they increase the tariff then decrease. all this will benefit the mobile operators.

[raccoon 53]

If they increase the tariffs/rentals, it will make landlines even less popular ...and as it is landlines are on the decline!

And I was hoping for something like unlimited free calls scheme..

[deepu 0]

In many countries they have unlimitted local call/internet schemes for Telephones....

Why such a scheme is not there in India till now!!

[Ashokjp 15]

BSNL not to hike rural tariffs

January 21, 2005 11:13 IST

Source: Rediff News

State-run BSNL on Friday said it will not raise rural telecom tariffs but will reduce some of the development expenditure in those areas to bridge the financial loss of Rs 1,254 crore (Rs 12.54 billion) caused by the latest Access Deficit Charge regime of telecom regulator TRAI.

"There is less possibility of hiking the fixed line tariff in rural areas. All we will do is reduce many of the development plans in rural areas as we have taken a hit of Rs 1,254 crore due to the new ADC order, which is a cause of worry for us," BSNL chairman and managing director A K Sinha said.

Rural customers have a lot of faith in BSNL because it is the sole provider of connectivity to them, he said, adding "we do not want to lose customers."

He said the PSU would not touch the urban tariff as well since it more or less matches the cost-based tariff. There is no loss for the PSU on the urban front, he added.

"If we have to touch rural tariff, we will think twice or thrice. There is no move to raise tariff in a hurry," he said.

Recently, Sinha had said BSNL was looking at various options, including hiking the rental for fixed line in rural areas and cutting down some of the major rural connectivity projects to compensate the loss caused by the new ADC regime.

He had also said the PSU had written to department of telecom listing out these options to offset the losses.

[deepu 0]

Its time for BSNL to concentrate more on their mobile service and concentrate less on fixed phone service...

Many people across the country are facing problems becoz their network is not able to handle their large base of connection!!!

[linuxguy 0]

seriously dude, we need to have a stronger network. BSNL/MTNL networks ****!

[cruiser 0]

Move to Sulabh scheme and keep the number and present your parents with a cool prepaid <put your fav GSM provider here> connection.

Thanks,

Cruiser

[deepu 0]

Move to Sulabh scheme and keep the number and present your parents with a cool prepaid <put your fav GSM provider here> connection.

Thanks,

Cruiser

24998[/snapback]

Whats this Sulabh Scheme??

[raccoon 53]

Sulabh scheme is an incoming only scheme where rental is something like Rs. 160 / month.

I believe this scheme has a variant where you can opt for outgoing facility too ...for rs. 1.20 per 3 min call (to local landlines). This is not recommended if your usage is high as you wont have the benifit of the zero rental schemes.

OR

Dont opt for incoming facility ...and you can make outgoing calls using BSNL's prepaid calling card for Rs. 1.10 per 3 min call.

[Chirag 5]

I guess its time for all mobile operators to have UNLIMITED calls scheme as MTNL Garuda provides. A fixed monthly rental of 1500-2000-2500 and any no. of outgoing national calls makes a lot of sense!

[deepu 0]

and unlimitted internet too along with it!!!!

[raccoon 53]

Well, as it is leading GSM networks are quite congested ...I dont know how they will be able to provide something like that. The good thing about Reliance is that there dosent seem to be any network congestion in spite of their unlimited intracircle plans. I really hope some GSM operator will eventually come out with such a plan. Calling people without worrying about tariffs is a great experience! Unfortunately very few people I know have Reliance phones.

[linuxguy 0]

thats because CDMA has WAY MORE capacity than GSM networks

[raccoon 53]

Ya, about 3 times as much...

[rakesh5295 0]

Check dolphin latest plan just 0.10 per min for person within the group, 0.40 mobile-mobile and 0.90 to landline. its great yaar.