New Delhi: Long distance telephone call rates are set to fall dramatically from Januray 2006 as the telecom ministry wants to ring in a single Subscribers Trunk Dialling (STD) rate across the country.
From the new year a new STD regime called 'One India' for both mobile and land line phones will be launced.
The new rates may be Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran's new year gift for the citizens.
Currently land line callers have to pay between Re One and 80 paise to Rs 2 and 40 paise per minute depending on the distance they are calling, while mobile operators charge different rates.
Local call from land lines is much cheaper at just Re 1 and 20 paise for every three minutes.
With 'One India' the Government wants to bring national long distance rates closer to local call rates and do away with the distance slabs.
"We will launch One India by January there will be one local call rate and one STD rate," said Telecommunication Secretary JS Sarma.
Rural India will also get easier access to telecom services as the Government has invited all operators for a meeting next week to discuss sharing of resources like infrastructure between government companies and private operators.
"The sharing will be of passive infrastructure like cell towers or BTS stations," said Sarma.
Mobile operators will also now get access to the USO fund like fixed line operators which are ment for expansion of telephone density in the village.
Department of Telecom (DoT) had also initiated the formulation of National Telecom Policy 2005, which was likely to address issues relating to Access, Spectrum allocation, technology, telecom equipment manufacturing and others.
Comments
0 comment