Players divided on OneIndia

Convincing telecom companies of the feasibility of its OneIndia plan could be a daunting task for the government.

Rather than having uniform call rates across the country, irrespective of distance, cellular operators have called for the introduction of two separate tariff slabs under this plan - one for intra-circle and the other for inter-circle.

While welcoming Communications and Information Technology Minister Dayanidhi Maran's proposal, operators have told the Department of Telecommunications that OneIndia must "pertain to inter-circle calls to anywhere in India".

They said, "Intra-circle calls are already very low in India. Each service area is characterised by the presence of six to eight players resulting in intense competition and tariffs are much lower as compared to international standards."

Contrary to popular expectations that doing away with STD calls will lead to uniform rates equivalent to the local call rate of Rs 1.20 a minute, cellular operators said rates should be calculated on the basis of weighted average costs involved in carriage.

"The determination of this (OneIndia) rate could be on the basis of weighted average costs involved in carriage. Determination of carriage costs on a weighted average cost basis taking into account 70 per cent reduction in charges for domestic bandwidth, will help in successful implementation," said Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the body representing all GSM operators, in their written communication to the DoT.

The government is also confronted with a slew of other problems. As only national long distance operators are currently allowed to carry inter-circle calls, licenses must be reworked. Also, not all operators have national licenses. Besides, operators will have to rework their interconnection agreements.

Adding to the list, GSM operators have called for a switch to hybrid revenue share-based Access Deficit Charge regime.

"Implementation of IndiaOne will require a switch to hybrid revenue share ADC regime, as the present call-by-call regime will not hold under the India One scenario," COAI said.

Operators have also raked up the issue of spectrum on the grounds that implementation of the policy will cause substantial increase in traffic. "This will put pressure on the limited spectrum available with the service providers," COAI added.

Therefore this needs to be examined, especially in the case of metro services and additional allocation of spectrum may be required to overcome this problem," COAI added.

Operators' wishlist

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• Two separate tariff slabs to be introduced "" intra-circle and inter-circle
• Rates to be calculated on the basis of weighted average costs involved in carriage
• Switch to hybrid revenue share-based Access Deficit Charge regime
• Careful examination of the Spectrum issue and additional allocation, especially in the metros