NEW DELHI, India—Seven leading cellular service providers—covering about 80 percent of India’s 5 million cellular subscribers—have slashed mobile-to-mobile long-distance telephony rates to one-half the current rates beginning 26 January, 2002.
The move was in response to deep discounts offered by the newly launched national long-distance service provider Bharti Telesonic. The new rate of a maximum 12 rupees (US$0.25) per minute for domestic long distance is significantly lower than the rates applicable for fixed phones, even after adding additional airtime rates on mobile phones.
Currently, all cellular subscribers interconnect with the government-owned BSNL for domestic long distance. Reacting to the move, BSNL Managing Director D P S Seth said his company would also consider special interconnect rates with private cellular operators.
The companies that will lower rates are BPL, Airtel, Escotel, Hutchison, Birla AT&T, Spice and Koshika. Airtel is owned by Bharti Enterprises, which also launched the long-distance company Bharti Telesonic.
This move by the cellular operators is expected to result in a considerable jump in the volume of domestic long-distance calls on cellular phone networks. Currently, domestic long-distance calls on mobile phones constitute only 8 percent to 10 percent of the total traffic.
“We are able to offer these rates to the users because of a cost-based and nondiscriminatory interconnecting agreement between the operators and the emerging long-distance operator,” said Asim Ghosh, managing director of Hutchison.
