Mobile subscribers of Tata Teleservices (TTSL) will now be able to talk endlessly by paying just Re 1 for a local call and Rs 3 for a STD call, irrespective of the call’s duration. However, users would be charged Re 1 per day for this new plan.
Existing subscribers can shift to this offer with a one-time recharge of Rs 96 and new connections for Rs 99 with validity of 10 years.
“This (launch of new tariff plan by Tata Indicom) will definitely force other operators to come up with such tariff plans. It would push up the usage on Tata’s network and lead to a churn in their favour,†telecom consulting firm Com First (India) director Mahesh Uppal said. As on July 31, TTSL, a pan-India CDMA player, had about 40 million wireless users. RCom has about 82 million wireless users. The total wireless base is about 450 million.
According to industry analysts, this move may prompt GSM operators to follow suit. An analyst with a foreign-based firm having operations in India said, “There is scope for further lower tariffs. With so many operators, the mobile market is likely to be more competitive.†Requesting anonymity, the analyst said GSM operators would adopt wait-and-watch policy before announcing any concrete tariff plans.
GSM operators association COAI director general T V Ramachandran refused to comment on whether the operators would follow suit. The plan by Tata Indicom comes after Tata DoCoMo GSM launched its ‘pay per second’ offer. “Pay Per Call will change the pricing paradigm in the telecom space,†TTSL managing director Anil Sardana said. However, endless talktime does not mean the caller can misuse the facility, as there will be monitoring of the call pattern of subscribers once any abuse is noticed, he said.
The company expects volumes to make up for the loss of average revenue per user in this plan.
In the ‘Pay Per Call’ scheme, users would be charged a fixed amount on a per-call basis. SMS would be also be offered at 50 paise for local and STD messages. Under this scheme, users would be able to call to any mobile or landline, irrespective of any network.
RCom, while launching its GSM mobile services in December 2008, had reduced the cellular tariffs by 30-50 per cent by offering different plans. The company, then, went on to add its highest number of additions at 11.3 million in January-March quarter, on the back of new tariff plans.
Meanwhile, Reliance GSM, Tata DoCoMo and Tata Indicom have eliminated the hassles of monthly rate-cutters for their pre-paid offerings to introduce simple tariff plans. This significantly reduces confusions arising out of complex rate plans including day/night charges, on-net/off-net charges and other fine print.
Elimination of rate-cutters is the latest in the price-reduction sche-mes and refers to the period for which a particular plan in valid. VG Somasekhar, regional head for Tamil Nadu
and Kerala of Reliance Communications, said, “Market research conducted by the company (Reliance GSM) had clearly brought out that consumers are confused by plans from various operators.
I might consider this.
