Bharti slashes roaming rates

Bharti Tele-Ventures announced free roaming on its Airtel network with effect from January 1, 2004, removing the need to pay any STD deposit or monthly rental for its post-paid customers using this facility.

Airtel has also removed airtime charge on all incoming calls, which will bring the roaming rate down to Rs 1.99 per minute from Rs 6.44 per minute at present.

Bharti, however, has imposed a daily roaming rental of Rs 5, subject to a maximum of Rs 25 per month, for roaming on networks other than Airtel, a company release said.

While roaming, new incoming call rates will be Rs 1.99 a minute as compared with Rs 6.44 per minute at present. Local outgoing calls will cost Rs 1.99 per minute on any other network, while the long distance STD call to fixed and wireless in local loop (WLL) network between 50 and 200 kms distance will come to cost Rs 1.99. The rates between 200 and 500 kms will be Rs 2.99 within 200 to 500 kms and Rs 3.99 for over 500 kms distance slab, the release said.

Reliance's decision to offer roaming at no extra charge last week had prompted cellular operators like Hutchison and MTNL to announce new lower roaming charges.

On Wednesday, Telecom Minister Arun Shourie announced a set of concessions for cell companies including reduction in revenue share by 2 per cent and a further 2 per cent cut in licence fees for the first and second operators in non-metro circles.

The Airtel roaming coverage is spread over 1,375 towns in the country and the company also has the largest international roaming among domestic operators spanning 300 networks.

As per the latest Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) figures for November, 2003, Bharti has 5.17 million mobile customers. The company offers GSM services in 15 of the 23 telecom circles in the country.

A post-paid subscription means payment for usage of the phone at the end of a billing cycle, on receipt of the bill. Roaming means using the mobile in a telecom circle different from the one of the residence of the user.