Cell tariffs may to drop further

The cellular population, projected at 12 crore in 2008, is also expected to overtake the fixed telephony population in that year. The first signs of this fixed-mobile crossover were visible in the April-June subscriber data, which showed that cellular subscriber additions (9.6 lakhs) were over three times more than fixed line additions (3 lakhs). ‘Cellular mobile telephone will soon become the first and perhaps the only phone for many subscribers,’ COAI’s chairman Manoj Kohli told mediapersons.

Giving a performance review of the industry, Ramachandran highlighted the steep 80 per cent decline in tariffs since the service was launched in 1995. ‘However, affordability can be sustained only if viability of the sector is assured,’ he said. The sustainability is threatened by lack of ‘equitable, non-discriminatory and cost-based access and interconnect regime.’

The industry called upon the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the government to ensure a fair interconnect regime and removing access charges of Rs 1.20 for every call made from a cellphone to a landline phone when a similar charge was not levied on WLL phones. They said that this discriminatory regime under regulatory regime was bad for consumers.

They also made a case for slashing the revenue that service providers have to share iwth the government, which currently ranges from 8-12 per cent. Another 4 per cent of revenue is soaked up by spectrum fee. ‘A huge chunk of revenues of the service provider—almost 35-42 per cent—are passed on various accounts like revenue-share licence fee, interconnect, spectrum charges and service tax, Ramchandran said.