Pay Less Up To 25% for Roaming

We had talked about net neutrality in one of our articles in the Gadget Garrio blog. One of the issues facing net neutrality was regarding the telecom or service providers who were crying foul. The reason was that these service providers were losing a lot of revenue due to mobile messaging apps making SMS and calling services literally free of cost.

Moreover, their complaint was that the free data that was being transmitted was bringing loads on their servers. Let’s suppose, some of their ‘complaints’ are true. But, to add to their woes there’s one more issue that will be like adding insult to injury.

From the start of the next month, the charges on roaming have been brought down. Mobile calls for roaming will become economical by 23%. A local SMS will carry a cost of only 25 paise. Earlier, the cost of sending such a SMS was Re. 1. This means the charges have been brought down by 75%.

The orders have been placed in place the by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). However, this order also means that subscribers won’t have the option of availing the schemes, which permitted them calling and SMSing when they were roaming at the home circle rates.

A statement regarding these orders was issued by TRAI. TRAI had cut the max rate, which an operator is able to charge for STD calls. The previous rate was Rs. 1.50 and has been brought down to Rs. 1.15. National SMS charges have also been brought down from the previous charges of Rs. 1.50 to Rs. 1.12 – a cut of 38 paise.

According to the revised tariffs, a service provider can charge 80 paise at the most, instead of the earlier charge of Re. 1.