No Proposal to Abolish STD Charges for Mobile Subscribers: Prasad

There is no proposal to abolish STD charges for mobile subscribers as of now, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday.

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said "at present there is no proposal under consideration to abolish STD charges for mobile subscribers as STD charges are under forbearance."

He said the impact of free national roaming on the revenues of service providers would depend on assumption of price elasticity, breakup of incoming and outgoing calls, termination and carriage charges.

State-owned BSNL has launched free incoming voice call facility. He said all 'wireless access service providers' have at least one tariff plan in which the incoming calls while roaming are free.

The minister said the Trai had estimated total impact on annual revenue on wireless access service providers at Rs. 1,627 crores.

Trai chairman RS Sharma last week said the regulator will test the improvement in call drops of various operators in select cities next month.

"We will be testing in a number of cities to see the improvement in call drops next month," the Trai chief told reporters on the sidelines of Infocom seminar in Kolkata.

He said Trai had already issued regulations so that customers are compensated for up to three dropped calls per day at Re. 1 per call.

The compensation would start from January 2016. Sharma said Trai has kept the regulations simple and the compensation would take place at the originating network.

"Trai has to keep in mind the interest of all the stakeholders," he said.

Written with inputs from PTI