India’s major mobile operators this week slashed their national roaming rates to comply with new regulations that came into effect on Friday.
The new rules, unveiled by the Telecoms Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in early April, imposed lower caps on charges for voice and SMS services for inter-telecom circle and intra-circle usage. The steepest cuts were made to outgoing text messages, which have had the maximum permissible price reduced by 75%.
Reliance Communications and Tata DoCoMo confirmed separately on Thursday and Friday respectively that they have reduced their roaming fees in line with the new rules.
Meanwhile, the Times of India reported on Thursday that market leader Bharti Airtel, second-placed Vodafone, and Idea Cellular have also slashed roaming rates.
Under the new rules, the maximum cost for a local outgoing roaming call has been cut to 0.8 rupees (€0.01) per minute from INR1.00. The cost of outgoing long distance calls while roaming is now INR1.15 (€0.02) per minute, down from INR1.50. Incoming call charges have been capped at INR0.45 per minute, down from INR0.75.
Under the old rules, the roaming cost of outgoing local text messages was INR1.00 per message. That has now been reduced substantially to INR0.25. Roaming charges for outgoing long distance texts have been cut to INR0.38 from INR1.50.
"Competitive pricing below the new ceiling levels is expected," said a statement from the TRAI, when it unveiled the new caps.
However, the five telcos that are known to have cut their roaming fees have brought them in line with the upper limits required by the new regulations. The TRAI might have to wait a while before more competitive prices are brought to market.
