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New Delhi , Sept. 26

CELLULAR and WLL limited mobility tariffs in the country have come down by half over the past two years as subscriber base has swelled, a study by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said here on Friday.

The TRAI study has found that a cellular phone user, with a monthly use of 400 minutes talk time, paid only Rs 1.12 per minute in the quarter ended June 2003 for his local calls as compared to Rs 2.42 that he had to pay in the quarter ended March 2001.

For the WLL customer too, in the same period and with the same usage, the rate dropped by 46 per cent to Rs 0.67 per minute from Rs 1.25 per minute, TRAI said.

In the case of quarterly cellular tariffs during December 2000 to June 2003, the decline was around 59 per cent, from Rs 2.73 per minute to Rs 1.12 per minute. TRAI compiled the rates based on its analysis of the data available in the tariff plans of various service providers.

The telecom regulator has also studied the drop in phone rates on the basis of a usage level of 100 minutes per month. Under this assumption, the overall cellular tariff has declined from Rs 6.32 per minute for the quarter ending December 2000 to Rs 2.41 for the quarter ending June 2003 - a drop of about 62 per cent.

WLL tariffs for 100 minutes per month use came down from Rs 4.27 per minute in the quarter ended March 2001 to Rs 2.08 per minute in the quarter ended June 2003.

Cellular tariffs for 100 minutes use dropped by 59 per cent to Rs 2.41 per minute, TRAI said.

During this period, the cellular subscriber base has risen from 3.1 million in the quarter ending December 2000 to 15.2 million in the quarter ending June 2003. By end of August this year, the number of subscribers has gone up to 17.4 million.

WLL subscriber base stood at 3.35 million, TRAI said.

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