'If rental is hiked, BJP will lose next election'
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India announced on Saturday 25 an 11-12 per cent increase in the monthly rental for landline telephone, while reducing the pulse duration for local calls to 2 minutes instead of the prevailing 3 minutes.
We asked our readers if Trai was justified in hiking the rental of basic telephone. Almost every one feels that Trai's move is highly disturbing as the salaried middle class, who mostly uses landline phones, will be drastically affected.
We produce some of the responses….
Sat Jan 25 14:55:32 2003
Name:Aman Ansari
Emailamanansari@rediffmail.com
Your Views:An ordinary men is a victim of the WAR between CELLULAR operators & the WLL operators. The TRAI should not hiked the landline telephone rentals, should not cut the pulse from 3mins to 2mins, should not decrease the free calls. What have we got to do with the WAR.
Sat Jan 25 14:56:54 2003
Name:d burman
Emaildburman_mkp@rediff.com
Your Views:GOVT. IS SAYING THAT TELEPHONE TO BE PROVIDED TO COMMON MAN SPECIALLY TO RURAL AREAS. HOW CAN WE JUSTIFY THIS BY INCREASING THE TARRIFF.
Sat Jan 25 14:57:03 2003
Name:Kiran
Emailkullu72@rediffmail.com
Your Views:No,This existing charges must not be hiked as it would hit a common man.The idea should be to reduce the rental as well as call charges to encourage usage of the phone.
Sat Jan 25 14:57:03 2003
Name:Kiran
Emailkullu72@rediffmail.com
Your Views:No,This existing charges must not be hiked as it would hit a common man.The idea should be to reduce the rental as well as call charges to encourage usage of the phone.
Sat Jan 25 14:57:52 2003
Name:A.Aniyankunju
Emailaaniyankunju@rediffmail.com
Your Views:When the cost of each and every commodity, for ex. petrol,diesel, tranportation charges (both rail and road), eletricity etc. etc., the intention behind reducing Telephone charges every now and then is something meant to destabilise the Public Sector Telephone Co. Whether the so called intellectuals think that cheap telecom service is only required for removing poverty, let other essentials be costlier. Telecom service is the only thing which is becoming cheaper and cheaper day by day, which is not a good sign for the future of Telecom Services in the country.
Sat Jan 25 14:58:27 2003
Name:Chittu
Emailchittu_s_b@hotmail.com
Your Views:I think the government is trying to fleece the people of whatever they have. First they have been trying to fleece us through income tax inspite of giving us nothing except for bad roads and electricity cut, etc. One simple question: What are we getting in return for paying tax and now this hike? The government did not get us the job we are in or would they help us get a job in case we lose the current one? So, why collect taxes?
Sat Jan 25 14:58:39 2003
Name:Avinash Murkute
Emailavinash_m28@yahoo.com
Your Views:Hike Unfortunate? Universal Service Obligation... ooops what is that? Did we ever bothered to look into affairs.The call rate for 180 Sec within 50 Km was Rs. 1.20 is this true. If regulators come Hingna Nagpur they will discover it as Rs. 3.50 for 3 minutes. Corruption ...oops again a word only known to CBI and ACB. Here at Nagpur Vigilance Officer is corrupt. BSNL never issues a new telephone conection in Hingna without taking bribe. Accepting bribe is compulsion. Services at par with WLL and cell operators.....ooops what are we talking about...when calls can be made free from telecom exchnage why one should have ceiling on network. In rural areas how many VPT's Village Panchayat Telephone are in working condition. BSNL is now talking that private operators should go in rural areas and they are listening is this not a joke! In Korea teledensity was increased upto 65% by way of compulsory regime and corruption free technology but in BSNL corruption is the way of life. They are not even bothered about the court's order (my case). Will increase in rental increase efficacy in services or efficacy in corruption is a big question? Avinash Murkute
Sat Jan 25 14:58:44 2003
Name:sanjay
Emailpolstar69@rediffmail.com
Your Views:Rate of call and rent should be reduced.
Sat Jan 25 14:59:19 2003
Name:Jeo Joseph James
Emailjeo_joseph@rediffmail.com
Your Views:It seems that somebody have vested interest in converting all landline users to mobile users. The rates must be brought down. No second is necessary regarding that, especially the IT is shooting up.
Sat Jan 25 15:00:36 2003
Name:wilson
Emailwilson_mathews@hotmail.com
Your Views:Its not a welcome sign that the tariff increase by TRAI for all local calla, its not luxury for the poor. they must take a average indian into consideration before jumping into such fast bad decisions. maintain the same cost and cut your internal cost and cut the free call to all government bodies. keep a ceiling for all government offices and dont punish the poor indian.
Sat Jan 25 15:02:48 2003
Name:P.S.MENON
Emailpsmenon123@rediffmail.com
Your Views:It is unfair to increase the tarif for land lines as also to reduce the free call numbers. While cell operators have reduced their charges recently TRAI should also look into this seriously and should not increase and instead offer more lucrative offers to customers so that the turnover will increase and the benefits will come up better. By increasing the tarif you are again burdening the present day telephone users and may be forcing them to do away with landlines and instead move towards cell phones.
Sat Jan 25 15:05:49 2003
Name:Partha Pratim Dutta
Emailpartha_050@rediffmail.com
Your Views:Is the government thinking that by hiking prices of each and every basic commodities will the nation a economic boost. I do not think so. A country like India where people are not so rich and earning capacity is on lower medium range the government should think before issuing any hike. The most pathetic issue is govt. does not take any opinion of the people of the nation.
Sat Jan 25 15:06:02 2003
Name:Rahul Puri
Emailpurirahul@rediffmail.com
Your Views:The hike in fixed line phones is totally unjustified. In fact it should be lowered in view of the fact that it is a basic service for people with zero mobility and low/no income. People such as aged senior citizens, housewifes and children who do not directly have a earning but are dependent on the basic telephony service in situations of emergency cannot be expected to carry a mobile device all the time. I will be forced to simply surrender my fixed line device for a mobile WLL phone which I will keep at home as a fixed line phone. Does this make sense to TRAI gentlemen???
Sat Jan 25 15:06:23 2003
Name:Partha Pratim Dutta
Emailpartha_050@rediffmail.com
Your Views:Is the government thinking that by hiking prices of each and every basic commodities will the nation a economic boost. I do not think so. A country like India where people are not so rich and earning capacity is on lower medium range the government should think before issuing any hike. The most pathetic issue is govt. does not take any opinion of the people of the nation.
Sat Jan 25 15:06:29 2003
Name:Vikas Gupta
Emailevikasgupta@rediffmail.com
Your Views:This is a blunder for middle & lower middle class. In this whole issue something is wrong or you can say need to set CBI enquiry for this to know why this charges are increased. They will definately evolved to be 1000-2000 crore Scam or more then that which we can not imagine.
Sat Jan 25 15:08:06 2003
Name:Abdul Majeed Khan
Emailvnskhan@rediffmail.com
Your Views:Actually the cost should be reduced as relaience and other cell providers reducing their tariffs so to compete with them BSNL and other country wide LAND line phone provides should reduce their tariff.
Sat Jan 25 15:08:13 2003
Name:Jayesh
Emailjmatani@yahoo.com
Your Views:No, the tariff's for fixed-line telephones should not be increased - especially when they are meant to compen
Sate for the falling revenues for the fixed-line operators. Sadly nothing else can be expected - TRAI, as an regulator - has always toed the same line and is expected to do nothing exceptional this time around. The state owned companies are saddled with inefficiencies, both operational and non-operational (read large and bloating work force). Recently in light of the matter, we had former CMD of MTNL in a way advising the state owned companies to venture in to related areas of business to increase their revenues and more importantly cut staff as it simply not possible to operate profitably with 400 odd thousand on the rolls. I would like to end this with a few questions to the regulator and the state owned companies - try and find solutions to curb inefficiencies in your own departments and be proactive in your approach. This, I feel is the only way to save these telcos from extinction. -
Sat Jan 25 15:08:16 2003
Name:N.Rama rao
Emailrrnuti@yahoo.co.in
Your Views:The tariff should have no change as they are meeting the common man need. the only modification that the TRAI should consider is how to isolate the inet based user and voice based user and decrease the tariff when the connection is operated on internet.
Sat Jan 25 15:09:31 2003
Name:gsrinivasreddy
Your Views:gsrinivasreddy@india.com
Your Views:Goverment is cheating the public.Instead of reducing the tariff, they are increasing. They are only looking for the profits.Those people should give detailed explanation to the people.
Sat Jan 25 15:09:36 2003
Name:Anu
Emailemailanu@indiatimes.com
Your Views:I do not think that the rates should be increased as it will imediately affect the middle class people. They will no be able to use the service at all.
Sat Jan 25 15:10:13 2003
Name:s.kumar
Emailss4yu@yahoo.co.in
Your Views:Sir, The increase in tariffs for fixed-line telephones is a wrong step.It is for the down fall of NDA govt. as at this juncture prices of petrol/L.P.g etc..are incresing day by day.So..its not acceptable to common man.
Sat Jan 25 15:11:19 2003
Name:Swapnil
Emailcoolswapnil1@rediffmail.com
Your Views:Absolutely DISGUSTING...!!!! How much more will the Govn. cut down and crush a common man's pocket and LIFE. The only people getting benefitted out of this scrap of settlement are the rich, Industrialists, film stars...in short...people of Upper Middle Class and the High Class societies. Everyone had thought that Mr.Pramod Mahajan will be a very good politician and person....no wonder he's behaved like a true Indian Politician....and has started to cut pockets of the comman man who tries hard in life to come up...but believe me, he will never be able to come up in life. Why do you want to increase the tariffs on the rent and to top it all....decrease the call time. These bugs have made the ISD rates lower cuz they are the people using these facilities and not the comman man...
Sat Jan 25 15:11:34 2003
Name:Alice Haryson
Emailaiigma@vsnl.com
Your Views:Sir, We are already paying very high rent and service tax. Please do not increase this as well as tariffs any more. Alice
Sat Jan 25 15:11:44 2003
Name:PRASANNAN P B
Emailprasannanprasannan@rediffmail.com
Your Views:The deceision to increase the fixed line charges is totally unjestified.I think TRA have some vested intrest to help the mobile lobby and bussiness lobby.This is entirly aginst the interst of common man.Even the present rate is to high for common man
Sat Jan 25 15:13:28 2003
Name:kiran swaroop
Emailswaroopdk@yahoo.com
Your Views:trai has always been trouble when it came abt telephone connections. while in US and and many other places the cost of making calls is really low, trai keeps raising the prices of making calls. telecommunication plays an important role in development of any country and when we have organi
Sations like this which hiking the prices now and then to support their age old technology instead of reducing their costs by streamlining their operations, it is finally the people who suffer. hiking costs and pushing others out of compitition by putting all sorts of rules really hurts. if their real intent is to improve the condition of telecomunication, then they should be just in their approach and give full freedom to all other companies with the final aim to reduce rates of communication. this would also help the country in terms of need of lesser petrol when people would rather talk on phone than travel and do business. encouragement in the direction of giving more incentives to the public to shift from commuting to communicating would benifit all in the end.
Sat Jan 25 15:13:49 2003
Name:SOMANI ASHISH
Emailsomani_ashish@rediffmail.com
Your Views:monthly rent should not be increased , because the fixed line telephone mostly used by the middle class people. Allmost all middle class users pay the telephone bill out of their monthly income. on the other hand allmost mobile bill paid by the company or business run by the user so the expenses on mobile does not effect the personal income. So the rent for fixed line reduce so that the maximum benifit goes to middle class/lower income group. On the contrary the mobile tariff increased substentialy to compen
Sate the loss of telephone companies.
Sat Jan 25 15:13:54 2003
Name:debapi chakraborty
Emaildebapi@vsnl.net
Your Views:no not at all basic telephone charge should not be hiked
Sat Jan 25 15:14:06 2003
Name:venkatesh
Emailprabhuvbj@rediff.com
Your Views:Tariff should not be increased
Sat Jan 25 15:16:41 2003
Name:montu
Emailmontusheth@rediffmail.com
Your Views:within a short span of time the fixed line are going to vanish ( close down completely )that's of sure
Sat Jan 25 15:17:15 2003
Name:Kannan
Emailkannancp@yahoo.com.sg
Your Views:It will affect interner browsing in the rural areas. If we want to boost IT infrastructure in India , shoild be the land line low cost
Sat Jan 25 15:17:16 2003
Name:Prakash Sharma
Emailunionleader@rediffmail.com
Your Views:The hike is not justified.Why land line phone users should be punished ? No body has compelled the operators to minimise the STD & ISD tariff & put themselves in financial losses. The fall in revenue is due to their own policies.Then why they are crying for the revenue loss.The general public should protest the hike.If they don't , then they should keep themselves ready to make their pocket more thin in the coming days as this hike increase process will be " A Never Ending Process ." I hope that good sense will prevail upon the Govt. authorities and they will immediately interven to provide solace to the common man.
Sat Jan 25 15:17:44 2003
Name:pushpendra singh
Emaileupush@indiatimes.com
Your Views:No,Never.Because TARI should make an arrangement so that people can get phone facility as low rate as possible.This is responsibility of TARI
Sat Jan 25 15:17:45 2003
Name:Jagdish M Shethia
Emailjagdish_m_shethia@ril.com
Your Views:No it should not have been hiked but reduced.The 3 mininute Rs 1.20P reduced to 2 minutes is not fair.Also free calls in fact should have been increased and also rent reduced to 200 per month. Who knows today in the cell WLL rate war Cell operators made mobile to mobile free but increased the rent by Rs 50/= will not form cartel and increase their rates again.
Sat Jan 25 15:17:55 2003
Name:Kishore
Emailemail2kishore@rediffmail.com
Your Views:Falling revenues for Fixed-line operators !!! who said that ?? If they want to increase the revenue, it is possible only by reducing the rates and there by increasing the no of calls each person makes. Any move towards increasing the rates would further reduce the revenues and prove drastic as its the information age.
Sat Jan 25 15:18:01 2003
Name:pushpendra singh
Emaileupush@indiatimes.com
Your Views:No,Never.Because TARI should make an arrangement so that people can get phone facility as low rate as possible.This is responsibility of TARI
Sat Jan 25 15:20:13 2003
Name:Amit Doshi
Emailamitrdoshi@rediffmail.com
Your Views:No. It is not justified increment in the rent and the call charges, i think in this way the trai and the govt. are promoting the private cell operator and wll operator like tata and reliance indirectly. in such a compitition everyone aspect the decrease but here they are increasing the rate, i dont understand what is the logic behind such increasing,i think bsnl and mtnl want to surrender their business to the private operator ( PAISA KAV ABIYAAN ), In this decision makers are making money and the AAM JANTA IS SUFFERING AT THE THE COST OF THIS DECISION.
Sat Jan 25 15:20:29 2003
Name:MR NARAYAN HALDANKAR
Emailmypayments1@rediffmail.com
Your Views:dear sir u people shd have decrease rental charges instead of increase. and call rates must incrase from 1.20 to 1.50 or 1.60
Sat Jan 25 15:20:51 2003
Name:mark
Emailmark3598@hotmail.com
Your Views:yes it should be raised
Sat Jan 25 15:21:01 2003
Name:ashok
Emailsv128@rediffmail.com
Your Views:i am oppositing any hike in the charges (land phones), rent etc. as government and other cell compnies are reducing their charges. ordinary people are still suffering very much by way of telephone rent etc. if the number of connections increases, bsnl and other companie should reduce the charges.
Sat Jan 25 15:21:17 2003
Name:guru raj
Emailgurucm2@rediffmail.com
Your Views:Any service should be able to be generate a reasonable profit. With the introduction of WLL & Cell phones there will be enough competition to keep landline charges competitive. If there is large scale surrender of telephones then clearly it is not perceived to be competitively or fairly priced. Let the market determine this. However there is a suggestion. Make dial-up Internet access cheaper by reducing the cost per minute to Rs 0.25. Internet has become a very widely used medium today and hence needs to be encouraged. It will result in higher computer and software sale and increased telephone revenues thereby giving an impetus to these industries. Dial-up access is just plain vanilla access. Those who want to pay for broadband and digital access or want to rent bandwidth can pay higher rates.We should remember that landline telephones can never become obsolete because a single cell connection can be used only by one person from an unknown location but a single landline can be used by several persons from a specific location only.
Sat Jan 25 15:21:20 2003
Name:Pullakat
Emailapullakat@yahoo.com
Your Views:I definitely disagree with the view that the fixed line operators are loosing revenues. With more and more people going for telephone connections and using internet at home via the land lines, the reveneues earned during the past few years are high. I request not the government not the increase the price else it will hit the middle class families very hard.
Sat Jan 25 15:21:59 2003
Name:Sandeep
Emaili_sandeepd5@indiatimes.com
Your Views:how could u think so in this century the technology is becomming cheap and cheap day by day and the services are increasing. this is really bad in the part of human being
More: 'An added burden on common man'
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