Get Ready To Pay High Telephone Bills

Service providers will soon increase the call charges and withdraw the schemes from this year onwards. 


Monday, November 19, 2012:  Get set for another hike in your telephone bills as the service providers are about to increase the tariffs. The hike is courtesy the increased spectrum price, which the companies will have to pay to the government and ultimately will be revived by overcharging the subscribers.

The telecom companies have decided to charge more and withdraw offers and discounts due to high price of the spectrum. Some online reports suggest that the phone bills will now be increased due to the 2G spectrum auction. This is said to be a pre-planned move which was being considered for some time now. The companies are expected to rise the call charges and wrap up all the schemes and offers provided to the subscribers from this quarter itself. “These would also lead to a 25-30 per cent improvement in voice-per-minute realisations over the next four quarters,” reports Business Line. 

Rajan Mathews, director, Cellular Operators Association said, “Of course, it will go up, and that’s clearly the direction of tariffs now. You can’t price the key ingredient, spectrum, at high prices and expect the operators to absorb the impact.”

Also, he said that the operators might increase a couple of paise initially and then it will gradually increase the tariffs gauging the market reaction. The hike would depend on company to company.

The GSM spectrum witnessed just five operators, which was a complete failure and same is the case with CDMA spectrum as it had no takers.

Number of new subscribers have been falling and so is the number of operators after the infamous 2G scam, and it is all resulting into a tariff hike. With high spectrum prices, companies are left with no option but to increase the tariff charges. Voice-per-minute realisations are expected to return back to normal by the end of next financial year after taking these steps.  

Source: news.efytimes.com