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From July 1, pay less roaming charges for calls, SMS 

New Delhi, June 17
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has reduced national roaming calls and SMS tariff ceilings from next month and said it would allow telecom service providers to offer national mobile roaming to subscribers for a fixed fee from the same date.

The ceiling tariffs prescribed by TRAI in 2007 were Rs 1.40 a minute for outgoing calls and Rs 2.40 a minute for outgoing STD calls while on national roaming. These ceilings have been reduced to Re 1 a minute and Rs 1.50 a minute, respectively.

Similarly, ceiling tariffs for incoming calls while on national roaming have been reduced from Rs 1.75 a minute to Re 0.75 a minute.

Tariffs for outgoing SMS while on national roaming have now been capped: outgoing SMS-local at Re 1.00 each and outgoing SMS-STD at Rs 1.50 each. Incoming SMS will remain free of charge.

It said competitive pricing below the new ceiling levels is expected. It also planned to encourage Special Tariff Vouchers and Combo Vouchers to be permitted for roaming tariffs.

This exercise to review national roaming tariffs was initiated by TRAI earlier this year to move towards “One Nation-Free Roaming” throughout the country, as mentioned in the New Telecom Policy, 2012.

“With increased subscribers and usage, the costs associated with national roaming have declined, but not vanished. There are still real costs incurred in providing the national roaming facility,” it said here in a statement.

“Mandating a fully free roaming regime is simply not practicable at this juncture. Compelling a transition to a fully free national roaming regime would result in telecom service providers not being able to recover their costs from roamers. In turn, telecom service providers would pass these costs on to all consumers (predominantly non-roamers) through higher tariffs.” — Agencies 

The revised slabs

* Outgoing calls ceiling reduced to Re 1 a minute (from `2.40) and outgoing STD calls to Rs 1.50 a minute (from `2.40)

* Ceiling tariffs for incoming calls on national roaming slashed from `1.75 a minute to 75 paisa

* Outgoing SMS tariffs capped at Re 1 each for local and `1.50 each for STD. Incoming SMS will remain free of charge

* TRAI has also permitted conditional free mobile roaming from July 1

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