 "Trai proposes Rs 0.05 termination charge on commercial SMS, Rs 0.02 for normal SMS")
The issue was discussed between the regulator and CEOs of top telecom operators today.
It also discussed the idea of permitting telcos who will now have to mandatorily offer roaming free to subscribers to charge through a “special tariff voucher” from customers. Under this for instance subscribers have to pay a certain upfront charge every month to avail free roaming across the country.
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In simple term it means that subscribers effectively will not be roaming free. However they would be paying especially if they are regular roamers much less than what they were doing earlier as the current charges are based on each call.
The meeting was attended by representatives from Sistema Shyam Teleservices, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Videocon among others.
When contacted, Trai officials did not want to comment on the issues.
At present, some operators charge a termination fee of up to 10 paise per SMS based on mutual agreements, although the same is not compulsory, according to industry sources. The termination charges were kept higher to restrict unsolicited SMS from unregistered tele-marketers, said the source.
Telcos get about 18% of their revenue from value added services, of which about 40% comes from SMS.
Termination charge on SMS affects consumers directly. While Trai had not fixed any termination charge for SMS, it had fixed termination charge of 20 paisa per minute for voice calls.
Termination charges are paid by an operator on whose network calls or SMSs originate to another operator on whose network communications end. So, termination charges have direct link to the tariffs of both voice calls and SMSes.
However, a few service providers like e-ticketing agencies are likely to be exempted from this.
In November 2012, Trai had said that consumers would be charged not less than 50 paisa per SMS once it crosses 100 a day. The Trai directive came as part of the regulator’s endeavour to curb unsolicited SMS and calls which continue to be a major problem even after the regulator has imposed the SMS Spam Guidelines.
The nationwide free roaming was announced as part of the National Telecom Policy 2012 that was approved in May this year.
As part of the One Nation – Free Roaming plan, consumers will not have to pay the hefty roaming changes while they are travelling out of their home telecom circle.
The industry has estimated that operators could take a hit of Rs 13,500 crore due to free roaming but this is expected to be neutralised within two years as free roaming will encourage consumers to talk more while travelling.
Meanwhile, the telecom operators and Trai also discussed the issue of stopping unsolicited activation of value added services (VAS). Trai has decided to appoint Sudhir Gupta, principal advisor (mobile services), Trai, to interact with the operators and take a final decision on whether they should be given an extension of the deadline.
Earlier, the deadline was February 3, but most of the operators did not adhere to the same.
In 2011, Trai had directed operators to obtain confirmation through SMSes or emails or faxes or in writing, from consumers within 24 hours of activation VAS services, such as caller tunes, failing which the service had to be deactivated, without any cost to the consumer.