Telecom operators are gearing-up for a
second round of tariff hike in less than a year to give a boost to their dipping revenues.
Vodafone has already hiked its post-paid tariffs and other leading operators,
namely Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular, are expected to follow suit soon.
Vodafone has hiked the voice tariff rates for its post-paid customers in Delhi, especially for its per second billing plan. It plans to roll-out new call rates to other circles in phases.
The telecom industry is
looking at increasing calling rates for local and STD calls to 1.20 paise a second from one paisa per second earlier. The tariff for all calls to landline phones will be raised to 1.5 paise per second.
In June last year, telecom companies had hiked tariffs by 20 per cent for pre-paid customers. However, some operators had spared their high-valued post-paid users at that time. However, operators are now looking at launch new tariffs for parity between post-paid and pre-paid call charges.
However, operators are unlikely to touch data charges as they struggle to get desired number of customers for these facilities, especially for the 3G services, which are becoming a nuisance for telcos as they have not been able to add customers The tariff cut in 2010, triggered by the entry of new players, has made the industry bleed, with most operators reporting negative margins over the past few quarters.
This led to a plunge in average revenue per minute earned by operators, which declined from Rs 1 in 2007 to 40 paise in the first quarter of 2011.
The telecom industry witnessed the lowest subscriber additions over the past five years during October-December quarter of this fiscal as mobile penetration in certain areas is fast reaching a saturation level and also because mobile operators have put their rural expansion on hold, owing to increasing debt and lower revenues.
Courtesy: Mail Today 
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