The Hindu : Business : Lifetime cellular tariffs come under scrutiny

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 03, 2006

Business

Business

Lifetime cellular tariffs come under scrutiny

Tariff war is on among the service providers

NEW DELHI: The euphoria over the `lifetime validity' offered by all cellular operators may be short lived as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has initiated an exercise to go deep into the matter to see its viability.

TRAI has undertaken a suo motu exercise to see that whether the concept of lifetime validity, being offered by mobile operators on pre-paid cards with one-time entry fee is viable or not.

Tata Teleservices is the first player to offer a two-year validity on its pre-paid card, which was strongly opposed by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI, saying it was tantamount to predatory pricing.

However, no operator could stand losing the race in adding new subscribers to their fold and this virtually triggered tariff war among the service providers.

To begin with Sunil Mittal owned Bharti, offering mobile services under the Airtel brand, launched a lifetime validity card with a one-time fee of Rs. 999 followed by Hutch, Reliance Infocomm, the Tatas and also by the state run companies MTNL and BSNL.

Tata-Birla owned Idea cellular went a step ahead by offering similar services in pre-paid and post-paid segments, raising doubts over the viability of these schemes.

``We will look into all aspects concerning these schemes and may take some action, if required,'' a top TRAI official told PTI, adding TRAI would come out with its decision within a day or two. — PTI

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