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Telcos make roaming cheaper
 
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June 01, 2007 14:29 IST
Last Updated: June 01, 2007 19:04 IST

Indian mobile operators led by Reliance Communications [Get Quote], BSNL and MTNL [Get Quote] on Friday announced a bonanza for their users who are frequent travellers by waiving or nearly eliminating roaming charges.

Anil Ambani group's flagship Reliance Communications unveiled two post-paid plans that made incoming calls while roaming free of cost for the first 200 to 900 minutes, depending on the scheme.

Simultaneously, state-run telecom firms BSNL and MTNL announced cutting roaming tariffs to Re 1 a minute for incoming calls and Re 0.40 for outgoing calls within any visiting network under a post-paid plan from June 3.

Mobile leader Bharti Airtel [Get Quote] had in February reduced roaming rates to Rs 1.40-2.40 a minute for outgoing calls and Rs 1.75 per 60 seconds for incoming calls. Tata Indicom said in a statement that its rates were already low at 50 paise a minute for incoming roaming calls.

Reliance Communications said in a release that users could avail of its free roaming service under the 'India Roam Free 990' and 'India Roam Free 390' plans. Besides, the CDMA operator also announced 50 per cent reduction in international long distance call tariffs on select routes including US and Canada (Rs 1.75 per minute), UK landline (Rs 2.99) and Gulf (Rs 6.75).

The rates would be available on purchase of RCOM's calling card worth Rs 2,250. BSNL too launched a similar calling card worth Rs 2,000 offering identical tariffs. Bharti Airtel's ISD rate to US and Canada is Rs 1.99 a minute on a calling card costing Rs 2,245.

In February, TRAI had reduced the roaming charges, fixing a cap of Rs 1.40 per minute for outgoing local calls, Rs 2.40 for outgoing national long distance calls and Rs 1.75 for incoming calls. It had earlier removed roaming rental.


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