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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has made it mandatory for mobile operators to offer at least one tariff plan based on ‘per-second' billing. The operators are free to offer up to 25 tariff plans, but at least one should be on ‘per second pulse' basis.
“It has been observed that per second billing system is more acceptable among the majority of subscribers, because it enables the subscriber to pay only for the actual usage,” TRAI said while issuing the tariff order.
Per second billing, first introduced in June 2009 by new 2G operators, became a huge hit in the market. Within a few months, almost all mobile service providers introduced second-based tariff plans for mobile subscribers in one form or other.
But, of late, after the new 2G players started withdrawing from the market, following the ruling by the Supreme Court, some of the incumbent players have been thinking about withdrawing this plan.
Free to fix rate
“In order to ensure that per second billing remains an assured alternative option for all subscribers, it has been decided to mandate that all service providers shall offer at least one pre-paid and one post-paid tariff plan with the pulse rate of one second for local and national long-distance calls,” TRAI said.
Mobile companies said they have no problem with offering a per second plan as long as they are free to fix the rate per second. “The problem is with the ‘1 paise per second' plan because that is not economical. We can offer a plan at 5 paise a second or 10 paise,” said a mobile operator.
The regulator has also allowed operators to change international long-distance tariff plans on life-time pre-paid cards. Earlier, TRAI had barred operators from changing any tariffs for a specific period after issuing a life-time pre-paid card.
Justifying the move the regulator said that GSM mobile traffic distribution shows that ILD (international long distance) calls, on an average, constitute only a negligible share of 0.24 per cent. “ILD calls or the rates thereof may not be a major factor that influences a subscriber in choosing any particular plan,” TRAI said.
Limit to SMS charges
TRAI has also told the operators that for premium rate services, they can charge up to four times the normal rate. Premium services are essentially phone calls and SMSes sent to participate in TV and radio programmes. So, if a subscriber pays Re 1 for a general SMS, he can be charged Rs 4 for sending a premium message. At present, the operator is free to fix any charge for such premium services.
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