The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has extended the date for comments on review of tariffs for national roaming to April 5. The regulator had earlier sought written comments by March 18.
TRAI had floated a consultancy paper to lower rates of mobile calls and SMSes, while the user is on roaming facility as the part of pan India roaming facility.
"Keeping in view the request of stakeholders for extension of time for sending their comments, it has been decided to extend the last date for submission of written comments up to April 5, 2013 and for counter-comments up to April 12, 2013," TRAI said in a statement.
Among various options to reduce or remove additional cost burden on roaming customers, TRAI had proposed a new norm, Home Price Rule. Under the Home Price Rule, a mobile subscriber should be charged the same amount that he pays when he is not roaming.
Mobile users are generally charged Re 1 for outgoing local call, Rs 1.5 for outgoing STD call and Re 1 for incoming call on per minute basis. For each outgoing SMS, customers are generally charged Rs 1.5. The tariff goes up further when his home operator has no network in roaming circle.
This compares outgoing local call costs of about 72 paise, outgoing STD call 90 paise, local SMS Re 1 and STD SMS in range of Rs 1.5-3.45, when the user is at his home circle.
