The Hindu Business Line : Pricing of long distance calls

THE "Dial 95" facility within each State has been made more attractive. It has been extended for distances greater than 200 km within the same telecom circle (usually each State is a circle). For instance, let us take the Tamil Nadu circle. The distance between Chennai and Kanyakumari is more than 700 km.

But the extension of the `95' facility enables a caller from Kanyakumari to reach a person in Chennai without STD on his phone. What is more, this call will cost Rs 2.40 per minute, regardless of the kind of network he attempts to reach.

However, the `95' facility is only available for calls from basic to basic phones and basic to WLL (M) phones and vice-versa. But bear in mind that you will need the STD facility to reach a cell phone user.

Calling across States

Let us now look at inter-circle STD calls (say, a call between Chennai and Mumbai).

For distances greater than 200 km, it will be beneficial to reach the person at the other end on his cellular phone — if he has one — from your landline. Such a call will cost Rs 3.60 a minute; a similar call to another landline or WLL (M) phone will cost Rs 4.80 a minute.

During non-peak hours, the cost advantage is further skewed in favour of calling mobile phones on long distance (distance greater than 500 km) from landlines. A basic-to-cell call will cost Rs 2.40 a minute in this case, compared to Rs 4.80 a minute in the case of a basis-to-basic and basic-to-WLL (M) call.

Cellular operators charge a flat rate of Rs 2.99 per minute (regardless of distance, no distinction is made between peak and off-peak hours). Factor in the outgoing airtime charges of Rs 0.50 a minute and the total cost works out to Rs 3.49 per minute. BSNL's new tariff compares favourably with these rates.

The cost advantages of using landlines get further magnifies when one opts for the Special and Super plans, where beyond the free limit it is Rs 1.10 and Re 1 a call respectively. Call charges will then work out to Rs 3.30 and Rs 3 a minute in such cases.

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