New Delhi: Telecom regulator TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) on January 25 announced a 11-12 per cent increase in the monthly rental for basic (landline) telephone while reducing the pulse duration for local calls to 2 minutes instead of the prevailing 3 minutes.

The new tariff and pulse rate would be applicable from April 1, 2003.

Free calls have been cut from 60 to 30 in urban areas and 75 to 50 in rural areas.

There would be no free calls in the case of WLL (Wireless in Local Loop)-mobile services.

For distances upto 50 km, it will be local call charge (Rs 1.20 per two minute) while for all other distance categories, TRAI has put a ceiling of Rs 8.40 per minute.

Basic telephone rental in cities has gone up from Rs 250 to Rs 280 per month.

At present, the basic telecom tariffs are subsidised. The monthly rental varies between Rs 70 to Rs 250 depending upon the areas and capacity of telephone exchange while the call charges are Rs 1.20 for three minutes.

In addition, the urban customers will be charged at the rate of Re one for up to 300 metred calls and at the rate of Rs 1.20 for calls more than 300.

Earlier, these customers were billed at Re one for up to 500 metred calls and at the rate of Rs 1.20 for over 500 calls.

Local call charges would be applicable for calls up to 50 kms, whereas for calls over 50 kms, the operators would be free to set the tariffs subject to a ceiling of Rs 8.40 per minute.

Not only has TRAI given a free hand to international long distance operators to charge their own tariffs, even in the case of WLL mobility services the operators are free to decide on tariffs.

Earlier, cellular subscribers had to pay Rs 1.20 for calls to land line phones, but TRAI has now directed that operators will have to pay Re 0.50 for calls terminating in fixed network, thereby giving a level playing field.

Similarly, fixed line operators who until now were not required to pay anything to cellular players for terminating the calls, will now have to pay Re 0.30. TRAI has specified that the subscribers of basic services would not have an additional burden of this charge as the same is built in the new basic tariffs announced on January 25.

But in the new regime of paying cost of using inter-network, the operators would pass on the additional cost burden to the consumers and one of the clear-cut example is WLL based limited mobility telecom services.

PTI