National Roaming Charges Set to Drop From 1st May
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a statement that mobile phone users will be paying 23% less for calls and up to 75% less for sending texts while on roaming. The reduced roaming charges will come to effect on May 1, 2015.
National roaming service lets subscribers to keep using their number while travelling outside the coverage of their home networks. Companies have offered roaming packs in the past which lets users reduce their roaming charges but a government mandated roaming charges will bring relief for all users.
As laid down by TRAI, For outgoing calls on roaming, the present charges of Rs 1 per minute has been slashed down to 80 paise per minute. As for STD calls, the rates has been slashed from Rs 1.50 to Rs 1.15 per minute.
Incoming calls on roaming will now be charged at 45 paise per minute instead of the earlier 75 paise. Local texts will now cost 25 paise while an STD text will be charged at 38 paise.
The rates for national roaming services were last revised in 2013. Telecom companies have been notified to introduce the new roaming tariff’s from May 1. The telecom companies have already been losing revenue to various messaging apps and hence have started attacking net neutrality in India. This order will further cut down their revenue stream. The companies might respond by raising data tariff’s or push for loose net neutrality laws in the country. Though the slash is a good news for the consumers, the developments in the Indian telecom space needs to be watched more vigilantly.
