OneIndia ends in a cacophony of rates

NEW DELHI: Now that most telecom service providers have rolled out their versions of the OneIndia plan, it’s time to do a reality check. The scheme was projected as a one-country-one-tariff plan, but telecom firms have rolled out several plans under the Re 1 umbrella. In the end you may have an STD tariff of Re 1 a minute, from any network to any other and from any part of the country to any other, but with variable monthly rentals.

On the other hand, the call durations may also vary. While some offer Re 1 for a two-minute call within their own networks, yet others offer rates like 40 paise per minute. Then, there are other variations on local tariffs and roaming, too.

Also, the Re 1 plan in most cases is just one of the schemes being offered by the service providers, while the existing ones continue to hold good. And, in most cases, post-paid plans appear to be simpler and more attractive than the pre-paid ones.

As an industry expert pointed out, “it is definitely the death of distance”, but one can’t ignore the fineprint of the schemes announced. As of now, in response to the OneIndia announcement by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), private operators like Bharti Tele-Ventures, Hutch, Idea Cellular and Tata Teleservices have offered matching uniform STD tariffs, but with several variations in plan offerings and monthly rentals.

Reliance Infocomm was the first one to announce a single tariff for the entire nation, but with a higher monthly rental of Rs 499. Most others have a monthly tariff of below Rs 300.

OneIndia, the dream plan of telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran, is all about having one long-distance (STD) tariff for calling anywhere in the country, irrespective of the distance covered, and irrespective of which service the calling party of receiving party used. However, while matching BSNL and MTNL’s Re 1 per minute STD rate, private operators have played around with the monthly rental component, an analyst pointed out.

In the most recent announcements on Thursday, Idea and the Tatas have disclosed their own OneIndia versions. Tata Indicom calls it `talk national, pay local’ scheme. Whether you are a Tata Walky customer or a Tata Indicom mobile user, you’ll pay Re 1 a minute for STD anywhere to anywhere. Post-paid mobile users will pay Rs 299 a month as rental and prepaid customers can avail of the service with a new recharge voucher of Rs 400 with a validity of 30 days.

Idea has offered two plans for the pre-paid segment and one for post-paid. If a pre-paid user buys a recharge coupon of Rs 249 with 30 days’ validity, he gets to make STD calls at Re 1 a minute, but there’s zero talk-time.

That means, when you go for this Idea scheme, you need to top it up with talk-time of any denomination of your choice. Again, for the pre-paid segment, Idea users can go for a recharge coupon of Rs 899 with 30 days’ validity and Rs 550 worth of talk time. The STD call charge is Re 1 per minute. In the post-paid segment, for a monthly rental of Rs 299, an Idea user gets to make STD calls at Re 1 a minute and Idea-to-Idea local calls at Re 1 for 2 minutes.

Just a day ago, Bharti and Hutch announced their OneIndia plans. Prior to that,

BSNL and MTNL announced their schemes of Re 1 per minute of STD at Rs 299 monthly rental.

Bharti’s Airtel announced several plans-India Home at Rs 299 a month, India Roam at Rs 499 a month, pre-paid at Rs 899 recharge value, and Airtel-to-Airtel local calls at Re 1 for 2 minutes. Hutch has announced an STD tariff of Re 1 per minute at a monthly rental of Rs 250 for both post-paid and pre-paid customers. For pre-paid customers also, a Rs 250 monthly recharge coupon scheme was announced, but only with top-up talk-time like in the case of Idea’s Rs 249 scheme.

There are around 80 million cellphone users in the country now, and the total number of phone subscribers (fixed and mobile) is nearly 130 million.