TRAI lowers price ceiling for national roaming

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a decision reducing maximum charges for national roaming calls and SMS, effective from 1 May 2015. India is divided into 22 licensed areas for telecoms services and the ruling affects subscribers making calls and sending messages whilst outside of their home operating area. Fees for outgoing local and long distance calls were set at INR0.8 and INR1.15 (USD0.013 and USD0.018) respectively, down from INR1.0 and INR1.5 previously, whilst the tariff ceiling for incoming calls was lowed from INR0.75 to INR0.45. Rates for SMS saw more severe price cuts, with the tariff ceiling for outgoing local messages dropping by 75% to INR0.25 whilst the maximum fee for outgoing long distance SMS was cut from INR1.5 to INR0.38. In addition to the price cuts, the watchdog has mandated that service providers introduce a special roaming tariff for their pre- and post-paid subscribers which would provide free incoming calls on national roaming.