"Forbearance does not mean that we have closed our eyes. Forbearance repose faith on operators and we realise there is competition in the market," Trai chairman Rahul Khullar told PTI.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India around mid of this month decided to continue with forbearance in tariff regime that gives freedom to decide on call and other services rates.
The Trai chairman said that if there is market where competition is driving tariff down then forbearance is reasonable action.
Indian mobile phone industry, known for the lowest priced telecom services rates, has now started seeing northward movement with continuous increase in tariffs by leading telecom operators -- Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular and Vodafone.
These four operators account for more than 65 per cent mobile phone connections in the country with 58.41 crore (584.1 million) customers on their wireless network as of November 2012. Telecom operators Idea Cellular, Vodafone and Reliance Communications are learnt to have increased call charges in the range of 20 per cent to 33 per cent over
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