Mobile Call rates can hike by 100%, Warn Pvt. Operators

Major Private Telecom operators said call rates will be hiked by 100% if the government accepts theTelecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) proposals on spectrum auction, service providers warned government.   are implemented. "There will be almost 100 per cent hike in tariffs if the current recommendations of Trai are implemented, and the affordability of telecom services will be severely impacted. It will also result in network losses in thousands of villages," Sanjay Kapoor, chief executive officer (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel said. Briefing the media a day after their bosses met key ministers and top officials to argue their case against the regulator's proposals, operational heads of the companies termed the recommendations as flawed and retrograde. "The TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) recommendations are flawed and retrograde, regressive and uncertain, which will harm consumer interest, and will ring the death knell for the Indian telecom industry," Kapoor said. Present also at the news conference called by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) were Himanshu Kapania, managing director of Idea Cellular, Rajiv Bawa, chief representative officer, Telenor India, Arvind Bali, Videocon director and CEO, and Vodafone managing director Marten Pieters.

Trai had recommended on April 23 a reserve price of Rs 3,622 crore per MHz in the 1,800-MHz band, 10 times higher than the cost of licences that came bundled with 4.4-MHZ spectrum in 2008. The Telecom Commission’s views have been sent to the regulator for its comments. Trai will respond to the questions, after which the commission will take a final call on the auction policy. That would be vetted and cleared by a ministerial group headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The commission has expressed reservations over the proposed liberalised regime in which spectrum usage would be delinked from the service offered. It has opined the ‘liberalised’ usage would need detailed study on the use of different technologies in the same band.