ADC cut lines profits: BSNL

BSNL accused the pvt players of raising their margins.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) today accused private players like Bharti Tele-Ventures and Hutch of not passing on the entire benefit of the reduction in access deficit charges (ADC) to consumers. Instead, BSNL alleged, the service providers had used the reduction in order to raise their margins from February 1.

According to BSNL's estimates, under the revised rates, private operators would see their average margin per call increase to Rs 1.07 from the existing 99 paise.

"Operators have reduced domestic long distance rates by 35 paise a minute when the ADC was cut by 50 paise for calls to distances beyond 200 km, which accounted for 90 per cent of all long distance calls from mobile phones. Their margins would increase by 10-13 per cent," a BSNL executive said.

Bharti and Hutch, however, contested BSNL's claims of 90 per cent calls going to distances beyond 200 km and said the state-owned service provider did not monitor their traffic.

BSNL, however, said the calculations were based on its traffic volumes for the GSM service it offered. Industry experts said the volume for distances beyond 200 km was at least 85 per cent.

As per BSNL's calculations, from February 1, private operators would cut their pre-paid STD tariffs, from Rs 2.99 a minute to Rs 2.64 a minute. The call charge at present is Rs 2 a minute, consisting of a carriage charge of 90 paise a minute, a termination charge of 30 paise per minute and ADC of 80 paise.

This leaves a margin of 99 paise in the 200-500 km slab, which is 33 per cent of Rs 2.99 a minute. With the new ADC of 30 paise, the margin would increase to Rs 1.14, amounting to 43.2 per cent of the call tariff (Rs 2.64 a minute).