There was a recent talk on imposing additional charges for Overseas Calls to India (there’s also a blog post regarding the same) and TRAI has come out with a solution which is both good and bad!

The Good news is that, local and STD calls (in India) are said to become cheaper from the 1st of April. The bad news is that, Overseas Calls to India will be costlier as TRAI has allowed few Indian Mobile Operators to charge more than what they are being charged currently!

Cheaper Local & STD Calls:
As per TRAI, local and STD calls inside India will become cheaper from the 1st of April. TRAI has announced a new termination fee of 20 Paise which was 30 Paise actually.

A Termination fee is the fee that a network pays to another network (per minute). For example, when a call is made from Aircel to an AirTel network, Aircel has to pay 20 paise per minute to AirTel as termination fee.

Reduction in the termination fee would ultimately end up in lower call charges! TRAI has also slashed the termination fee that has to be paid to BSNL for carrying out every single call. State-owned BSNL carries out every single call made within a circle and its fee is now lowered to 15 paise per minute (which was 20 paise). This lower tariff also applies to 3G services.

Overseas Calls to India
Till now, Indian Telecom operators were not allowed to charge more than 30 paise per minute. As per the new TRAI’s rule, Indian Telecom Operators are now allowed to charge upto 33%. The finalized rate is 40 paise per minute. TRAI has asked Indian Telecom Operators utilize this price hike to lower the price of ISD Call rates.