a. Charges will go up, as interconnection and termination charges will now be added to the basic call rates for calling into cellular and wll networks.
b. No standard rate package. Calls made to different services (Cellular/wll/Fixed) will attract different rates.
c. Calls to mobile phones will become expensive (Rs 1.20 per minute). Now only fixed-to-fixed calls will stay at Rs 1.20 for three minutes.
d. TRAI has already mooted higher rentals. Different tariff plans will have different rentals, which can be anything between Rs 250 and Rs 2,000.
e. No more free lunches. Free calls reduced from 75 to 30 per month.
Mobile phone users win some, lose some
a. Incoming calls are free (from any network or service) from India or abroad. Steep cut in outgoing rates too, but that may change.
b. No more hidden charges on outgoing as interconnection and termination charges are built into call rates.
c. Value-added services will become costlier. Cost of SMS has been raised from Rs 1.50 to Rs 2.00. Roaming charges increased.
d. Processing fee increased by some operators earlier this year. There may be more to come.
WLL users should watch their bills
a. Calls from your CDMA mobile will not be as cheap as promised as you will have to pay interconnect and termination charges for calling other services (Cellular/Fixed) as fixed by TRAI.
b. Consumers may find a 100 per cent increase in tariffs in case of some service providers.
c. Value-added services like SMS and roaming not allowed in limited mobile service. Some operators have approached TRAI for this but are yet to get approval.
d. The cheap calls will be limited to calls made within the specific network only.