The Hindu Business Line : BSNL lowers international roaming tariffs

New Delhi June 15 Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has further intensified the ongoing mobile tariff battle by offering a 5 per cent reduction in international roaming tariffs to its cellular users.

The State-owned company has entered into an agreement with 100 mobile operators across the world whereby BSNL will also reciprocate with cheaper roaming tariffs to foreigners travelling into India.

As per the deal worked out by the company, BSNL subscribers travelling to foreign countries including the US and UK will now have to pay a surcharge of only 10 per cent compared with 15 per cent earlier.

With international roaming call rates being as high as Rs 60-Rs 90 per minute, the reduction in the surcharge would result in savings of around Rs 3-Rs 5 per minute for BSNL subscribers.

On the other hand, foreign mobile subscribers — belonging to any of these 100 operators and travelling into the country — will have to pay Rs 30 per minute for an outgoing call instead of Rs 49 at present and Rs 50 per minute for an incoming call compared with Rs 75 per minute at present, if they choose to roam on BSNL's network in the country.

More than offering benefits to its own subscribers, the BSNL move is aimed at garnering a larger share of the inbound roaming revenue, which at present is dominated by private operators including Bharti Airtel and Hutch.

According to industry sources, there is a huge margin on inbound international roaming tariffs since it is more than 30 times the cost of making local call.

But with BSNL reducing the margins considerably, foreign operators may choose to roam on the PSU's nationwide network than on Airtel or Hutch's network.

And if the private operators match BSNL tariffs, then they stand to lose out on revenues due to lower margins. According to one industry estimate private operators get revenues of around Rs 2,000 crore annually from international roamers.