CHENNAI: Mobile phone subscribers in the country end up paying thousands of crores extra every year to the service providers as the calls are not calculated on per second usage, according to the Consumers Association of India.

Citing an example, R. Desikan, association trustee, said if the tariff stipulated `X' amount for a one-minute call and if the subscribers spoke for 61 seconds, they were charged for two calls.

The association wants the telecom companies to introduce a tariff structure in which the cost of the calls is worked out on the usage per second. According to a press release from the association, "in most countries calls that get terminated in less than five seconds never get charged at all."

Apart from charging for the entire minute (pulse), the operators collect the tariff even if the call had dropped due to poor quality of service. Substantiating the demand for per second billing, the association said the mean talk time of a call in India was only 33 seconds.

Noting that most subscribers did not understand the terms used by the mobile phone companies, Mr. Desikan said the association wanted the service providers to issue a detailed bill. The problems faced by the subscribers pertained to the system coverage, billing and customer care issues, he said adding that system coverage indicated the geographical extent to which the operators would be able to give a reliable and dependable service.

Demanding imposition of "severe penalties" on service providers who were not able to connect calls that originate from their network, he underlined the need for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to lay down guidelines stipulating the infrastructure to be created with growth in subscriber base. The subscribers should not be asked to pay for `drop calls,' which was a term to describe calls that get terminated prematurely due to the inefficient system. The service providers must inform the subscribers whenever they introduce new schemes to enable the users choose the best option available,

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