State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd on Wednesday indicated a reduction of upto 15 per cent in international long distance call rates especially for the US and UK.

"Because of new carrier rates negotiated with other players, the ISD rates can fall ranging between 10 to 15 per cent," BSNL chairman and managing director V P Sinha told PTI.

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He said that BSNL was working on the issue and reduction in rates could take place during the next 10 days.

With benchmarks for resettlement rates for carrying international calls, BSNL is also planning to negotiate with the Tata-controlled Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd to match the rates offered by other ILD operators like Data Access for routing its traffic.

"We have an agreement with VSNL for using their infrastructure for one year. For carrying ISD calls originating from our network, we will negotiate rates with VSNL... if they come down to the same level as other operators then we will route traffic through them," Sinha had said earlier.

He had said that in case BSNL managed to get lower rates from VSNL or others, the benefits would be passed on to its subscribers.

VSNL has already bid lowest settlement rates for carrying BSNL's ISD traffic to Europe, SAARC nations, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and Africa, but lost to Data Access for the US, Canada and UK.