Centre changes circle norms; mobile costs fall

The government has laid the ground for another round of hefty price cuts in the mobile telephony market. Subscribers in Mumbai, Chennai, Kol...

The government has laid the ground for another round of hefty price cuts in the mobile telephony market. Subscribers in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and Uttar Pradesh can now make and receive calls within their respective states without inviting any roaming or STD charges.

The government and private operators have agreed to treat Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal and UP West as well as East as a single circle for mobile telephony.

In effect, this means that roaming users within these states will be billed only on the basis of local call charges from May 25.

The announcement was made by Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran on Saturday. The minister said all private operators were ready to comply with the new billing system.

There are, however, a few conditions to the bonanza for the operators: Maran said operators may not set up independent telecom infrastructure outside their licenced zones. However, they may share each others8217; networks to provide seamless roaming, based on the new tariff structure.

Operators are also free to lease new lines outside their licenced zones and provide seamless interconnectivity. The billing, in all cases, will be charged locally.

8216;8216;They operators can not expand networks beyond licenced circles, but they can lease lines outside it,8217;8217; the minister said.

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Also, this new service is valid only for calls made from mobile phones or received by mobile phones. Therefore, only mobile-to-mobile or landline-to-mobile calls are covered by the scheme.

The structure of telecom circles will also not change for regulatory purposes. For instance, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata are separate telecom circles within Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and West Bengal respectively. These will remain separate circles. Similarly, Uttar Pradesh is divided into two circles, UP West and UP East, which stays unchanged.

Private operators said they were overjoyed with the new system, a long-standing demand from them. 8216;8216;We feel this announcement will greatly benefit customers and will drive growth of telecommunications,8217;8217; said Manoj Kohli, president, Bharti Cellular.

The new system will come into effect from midnight of next Wednesday.