Tata docomo extends per second billing to roaming

Tata Docomo, the GSM mobile service of Tata Teleservices, has extended its per-second billing plan to roaming services. Its subscribers would be charged one paisa per second for outgoing and incoming calls while roaming, effective tomorrow.

“This tariff plan is in line with our promise to offer innovative and honest services to our subscribers across the country,” said Deepak Gulati, president, Tata DoCoMo. Most telecom operators in India charge a minimum of 50-60 p per minute for roaming services, the company said.

Roaming services contribute seven to 10 per cent of the wireless revenues of service providers.

This is bound to create more ripples in the industry, witnessing a rate war for some months.The company was the first to introduce a per-second rate plan; it impelled every other provider to do the same thing. On the back of this new rate plan, it added the highest number of subscribers in October, the third month in succession that this has happened.

This latest move follows Bharti Airtel’s announcement on Friday, where it had cut roaming charges by up to 60 per cent. Airtel had launched a ‘Turbo’ plan for its roaming services at 60p a minute for all incoming calls and 60-80p a minute for outgoing calls, though subscribers need to pay an upfront fee of Rs 98 for availing the new plan. Reliance Communications had already launched a scheme where users would have to pay 50 p/minute for all services, including roaming.

In contrast, Tata Docomo customers would not have to pay any upfront charges and the scheme would be applicable to both prepaid and postpaid subscribers. Users would be charged 1 paisa per second for all incoming and outgoing local and STD calls, to any network, mobile or landline phones, while roaming. The scheme is effective across all 15 circles where Tata DoCoMo has launched its mobile services. The company is expected to launch its operations pan-India by the end of this year.

An analyst working with a foreign company having operations in India said the plan is to grab users before the new telecom licencees start their operations by the end of this financial year. It would definitely impact the margins of telecom majors but they would still make profits, the analyst said.

Etisalat DB, Uninor, Datacom and STel are the new players expected to launch their mobile operations by end-March. This would take the number of operators in the telecom industry to about 11.

A research report by foreign broking house Macquarie said the recent activity on rates in the sector is concentrated in the prepaid voice space. And that it expects further risks to telecom companies from rate cuts in SMS, data plans, postpaid and corporate plans and international roaming.