Pushing the national long distance call traiff further down, cellular operator Hutch has offered its subscribers in Delhi a new STD tariff of 75 paise per minute on calls made to all private GSM mobile networks, barring Mahanagar Telephone Nigam, Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Code Division Multiple Access*.
The offer carries a rental of Re 1 per day and is for both pre-paid and post-paid users, company sources said.
The operator has also introduced an offer, under which a Hutch subscriber can SMS another Hutch user in Delhi at 10 paise per message during the night.
These offers are not applicable for post-paid users, who are already on the discounted or free packs of STD or SMS.
In Mumbai, the operator has introduced a similar offer but with different rates like STD at Re 1 a minute for calls made to Hutch networks and a monthly rental of Rs 25.
Currently, Hutch STD rates are Rs 2.65 a minute. This move from Hutch may trigger another round of STD rate cut in the mobile arena with a leading private GSM operators already looking at introducing a similar plan to counter competition.
In January this year, AirTel and Hutch reduced STD rates by 35 paise from Rs 2.99 a minute prevailing at that time.
These operators had lowered the rates following Telecom Regulatory Authority's new levy regime, which reduced the Access Deficit Charge paid by private operators to the PSUs.
* CDMA is a digital wireless telephony transmission technique. It allows multiple frequencies to be used simultaneously. The CDMA idea was originally developed for military use over 30 years ago.