For Mumbai advocate Vivek Khemka, May 1 was a red-letter day. From that day, all incoming calls on his mobile were free under the new IUC or interconnect regime. Incoming comprised a whopping 60 per cent of his talk time. So his monthly mobile bill was set to plunge, right? Not really. QUICK RECAP To begin with, an interconnect agreement lays down commercial and technical terms and conditions under which two service providers connect to each other to allow their customers seamless access to each other’s resources. Simply put? How much does a cell operator pay your phone company, say MTNL or BSNL, for a call made to their landline network (and vice versa). The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) suddenly announced it would review the new regime, just a week after it was announced. ‘‘The review would require a period of about three months through consultations. In case of further data is needed to re-assess access deficit charge, this period could be higher. In the interim period, the present IUC regime will continue to prevail,’’ TRAI had said in a statement early this month. Tariff packages after May 31 will once again be reviewed by the TRAI to see if they follow the IUC regime. THE WINNERS, THE LOSERS Although the average monthly bill of a cell subscriber is likely to fall, the revenues that the cell companies generate are likely to stay constant. This is because of higher roaming and a new, twice-as-expensive rate (Rs 2) for roaming SMS charges. Also, cell companies will now get access charges from fixed-phone operators. In the coming months, say cell companies, value-added-services will drive their revenues. ‘‘SMS, ring tones, MMS are going to be very big revenue earners for the operators,’’ says Airtel’s Jhamb. Rentals, information services via SMS, interconnect charges are some of the alternate revenue streams that the operators are looking at. ‘‘We also hope the STD volumes will go up,’’ adds Jhamb. So, clearly, operators are betting big on value-added services to counter the loss from free incoming. Within days of the announcement, almost all cell phone operators announced grand new plans, complete with slashed rates. But a fortnight down the line, the lawyer is not impressed. ‘‘It looks like my monthly bill will remain the same,’’ shrugs Khemka, who, like most of us, has been bombarded with a new tariff plan almost every week right upto the middle of May. ‘‘My incoming is free, but according to my new tariff plan, my outgoing has become more expensive, so eventually I actually end up losing,’’ he adds.Hisham Kabir, a trainee-manager with BASF and heavy cell user, agrees. ‘‘Even if incoming is free, and we don’t make so many outgoing calls, what about SMS? We tend to send many messages and eventually our bill is bound to remain the same,’’ he says. “I don’t see how the new regime helps.”And so the bafflement grows. ‘‘Yes, there is lot of confusion,’’ admits Atul Jhamb, Chief Operating Officer of Airtel in Mumbai. Mainly because now every operator will come up with new tariffs everyday under the new regime. ‘‘One month from now, I guess things will get a little clearer for the market and then it will take a little more time for the whole thing to trickle down to the customer level,’’ forecasts an optimistic Jhamb. ‘‘It’s too early to say anything about new tariffs at the moment’’ says Kunal Ramteke, marketing controller at BPL Mobile Communications Limited, ‘‘But, yes! there will be composite rates for the customers,’’ he adds, pointing out at one singular rate across the board. WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND? • My incoming is free, which means that my bills will come down? This depends entirely on your usage pattern. The Calling Party Pays concept means that the caller pays more, but simultaneously, if you use your SMS more or take advantage of SMS-based information (a dating service or booking a table at your favourite restaurant etc, your bill is likely to remain the same. • What about STD? Cell2cell STD rates have come down. But since prices have fallen, it’s likely that use will go up (at least that’s what cell companies expect) and thus, you may end up paying pretty much the same. THE WINNERS, THE LOSERS • Cell2Cell long distance calls THEN: Rs 2.99 per minute + airtime rates NOW: You can now call anywhere in India, from a cell to another cell, for just Rs 1.99 a minute. • Cell2Cell local calls THEN: Depending on your plan you could pay up to Rs 2 per minute NOW: Rs 1.49 on another cellular phone, for a monthly rental of Rs 349. • Cell2Land THEN: Rs 4.98 per minute (Rs 2.99, plus 1.99 airtime charges) for distances above 50 kms, and Rs 3.19 per minute (Rs 1.20 plus Rs 1.99 airtime charges) for distances below 50 kms. NOW: The plan is broken into three slabs. Rs 1.99 per minute for distances between 50 to 200 kms; Rs 2.99 per minute for distances between 200 to 500 kms; and for distances above 500 kms, Rs 3.99 per minute. Here again, the consumer saves up to 60%. • Land2Cell THEN: Rs 7.20 per minute. NOW: BSNL subscribers can make calls to cellphones at the rate of Rs 3.60 for three minutes • Number of free calls THEN: BSNL’s urban customers had access to 30 free calls. For rural subscribers, the free-call limit was 50. For MTNL subscribers in Delhi and Mumbai, the free-call limit was 30. NOW: BSNL’s urban customers will now get 50 free. For rural subscribers, the free-call limit is 75.
