Reliance's much publicised STD call offer of 40 paise a minute to subscribers in its network may not be possible with telecom regulator Trai on Tuesday saying that the company was yet to submit revised tariff package and asserted that no discrimination between subscribers of different network would be permitted.
In the wake of news reports questioning the sustainability of the Reliance's offer, Trai chief Pradeep Baijal said guiding principle warranted tariffs to be non-discriminatory.
"This implies that the service provider should not charge different tariffs for calls originating and terminating in its own network or calls originating in its own network and terminating in other networks offering the same type of service," he said.
Trai had announced interconnect user charge system and made it mandatory for all telecom operators to comply with it from May 1.
Baijal at the same time clarified that Reliance's pre IUC package of 40 paise a minute was approved by the authority but under the new dispensation the company would have to submit new tariff proposals.
He declined to comment on whether he found the Relinace package discriminatory saying that, "They are yet to submit their revised tariff plans and unless we see and evaluate with different conditions nothing can be said."
When contacted, Reliance Infocomm officials said that the company is yet to receive any official communication from Trai in this regard.
The regulator said that the company is yet to submit its new package with the regulator.
Baijal said while the non-cellular and non-WLL tariffs were required to be placed before Trai for approval, packages relating to cellular and WLL would come up to the regulator for information as the tariffs for these two segments of telecom services would be forborne.
Besides the clause of non-discriminatory tariffs, as a general principle, tariff packages have to comply with other factors such as consistency with IUC regulation; compliant to 24th amendment of Telecom Tariff Order; non-predatory which means not been designed in a manner that eliminates competition and thus the viability of industry in the long run.
In this respect, BSNL's decision to charge different pulse rates for fixed to fixed calls and fixed to mobile phones calls, were not discriminatory as the corporation was not discriminating between its own subscriber and that of a specific operator.
