The tariff war is turning the heat on telecom operators to respond to any competitive pricing introduced in the sector. Airtel and Idea seem to be the latest entrant to join the race for ‘One second billing’.
Bharti Airtel has launched ‘one second billing’ plan named ‘freedom plan’ wherein subscribers would be charged 1 paisa per second for all local and STD calls to Airtel network and 1.2 paise/second for all calls to other networks.
The per second billing was first introduced by TATA DoCoMo and which seem to have upped the ante for other telcos to respond as Tata Tele has benefited immensely from this tariff plan structure.
Idea Cellular too announced its plan to embrace per second billing after testing it in Himachal Pradesh circle. BSNL has launched per second billing few weeks ago and Vodafone is also looking for pan-India rollout.
Everyone seems to be judging the per second plan as precursor to cheapest telecom tariff in the world. The viewpoint of telecom minister was that Indian telecom subscribers would avail STD at 0.25 paise and local calls at 0.10 paise in future.
This per second billing structure might just stop the erosion in tariffs unless telcos offers higher decimal pricing the 1 paisa billing will only results in cumulative tariff of 60 paisa per minute.This intelligent move by telcos may see their margins eroded to an extent but is better than going into ultra low cost pricing structure as advised by telecom minister. Even TRAI has suggested going to ‘One second’ telecom regime in India.
According to an estimate this move will benefit subscribers as current call wastage is at around 18%. The telecom companies at the same time may see a fall in revenues to the extent of 15% much better than the fall which could have been witnessed in .10 paisa/minute telecom regime in India.
The per second billing is also not ubiquitous in telecom sector as many subscribers are still paying higher tariffs because they are either not aware of how to avail this scheme as many operators require different recharges on prepaid to convert to per second billing. The transparency needs to be infused in per second billing structure and flat call charges needs to be introduced for off & on net calls.
I was listening to news few days back in which an Idea Official said that it will not be possible for mobile operators to provide such low call rates and prices will go up in couple of years.
Contrarary to what the Idea Official said, the present telecom minister said that his plan is to reduce local call charges to 10p/min and std to 25p/min (If that happens small telecom companies will find it tough to stay in the competition and in the market)
Personally I feel that right now a kinda Telecom massacre is going on where every Telecom company is trying how to kill the other (very fierce competition for the market share)
2 things…
* the word’s “ante” and not “ant”
* what does “.60 paisa” signify?
Thanks shayon for pointing out the errors. We have corrected them.
I got my Airtel per second billing. We should all thank to TATA DoCoMo for bringing in the tariff war.
Techno-Pulse
@Puneet
You never know whether the telecom companies are really slugging it out or doing cartel trades cos the decline in tariffs in recent quarters is not much in local calls only in STD and roaming charges they have made a move.Telecom companies are racing against per second billing but are not replying to recent tariff introduction of 50 paisa by reliance .This signals that they prefer intelligent pricing than slashing voicce charges.The average realization for telcos is still on top of roof compared to our telecom minister expectations.
@Raghav
Basically what I feel is Simply Reliance Plan is result of competition from the mobile operators who were providing STD calls at 50 paise/min if there subscriber recharges with STV. (So this was result of competition from many to one)
However Pay Per Second pulse is result of competition from one to many.
I guess Reliance will soon board the Pay Per Second Wagon, dont know when but I think it surely will.
In my earlier comment I said I was expecting Reliance to join Pay Per Second Bandwagon. Well, I was correct Reliance Mobile today has launched Pay Per Second Plan which are much better than what any other operator is providing – Airtel, Idea and Vodafone are no where near to reliance.
Reliance, I suppose still will be the cheapest.
@Yes Reliance ryt now is the cheapest.
Good move by Vodafone in one second billing, it will defenitely benefit the existing huge sub base
Vodafone made a smart move and will make a dynamic change in kerala market by introducing one sec billing