Entry for all to halve call rates: Ministry

The communications ministry is of the view that telecom tariffs in India can fall further to almost half their current levels "" with local intra-circle calls for 25 paise and nationwide long distance calls for 50 paise "" provided new operators are allowed to start services.

The ministry has apprised the Prime Ministers' Office of this.

According to a top ministry official, there is enough spectrum for accommodating existing second generation operators as well as well as the new ones.

"Between 30-35 Mhz of 2G spectrum will be available in a few months. Only 37 Mhz has been allotted to existing six or seven operators, who service around 217 million users. With a similar quantum of spectrum set to be available soon, another 250 million users can be added to existing and new 2G networks in the next three to four years", he added.

The official added that with the advent of third-generation (3G) mobile services, for which the government had already announced an auction process, another 100 million users would go mobile, taking the mobile subscriber base to around 600 million in a few years.

"Even school-going children will go mobile at such tariffs. Handsets, which are available for Rs 600-700, will sell for as less as Rs 50-100. The Indian market is huge and that is why so many new entrants want to come in", he added.

Taking a dig at existing operators, the official said the current subscriber growth (every month around 7.5 million people go mobile in India), was something they wanted to keep only for themselves.

"They are making huge profits but are not investing enough to meet the demands of fresh subscriber growth. At the same time, they are not willing to accept new applicants and want full monopoly. Trai has recommended there should be no cap on the number of service providers, but they want otherwise", the official said.

Insisting that the DoT was not wrong in allowing use of cross-technology (GSM) to CDMA operators, the official claimed that Reliance had applied for this in 2006 and not as was being said.

"The application was referred to Trai by the ministry then. It was only this August that the Trai's recommendation permitting cross-over came to the DoT," he added.