Cheaper mobile call charges coming?

By Shezna Shums

Speculation was rife that the current outgoing rates for mobile calls charges will be slashed by the current regime.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka is to decide on changing the minimum rate for an outgoing call per minute from mobile networks by July.

The TRC will decide how and when they are to reduce this outgoing rate from Rs. 2 to Re. 1.

Director General TRC Anusha Palpita stated that no decision had yet been made and that a decision will be made in July following the approval of the commission.

It is also learnt that the floor rates introduced by the TRC last year to curb mobile companies resorting to cut throat competition are due to expire in July.

Meanwhile a study by the UN International Telecommunications Union (ITU), has shown that Sri Lanka is among the top three countries in the world to see a sharp increase in telecom services affordability.  The price basket used in the ITU study comprises average cost of mobile phones, fixed-line broadband internet services, and fixed-line telephones covering 165 economies.

Sri Lanka’s ICT price basket dropped to 2.4 in 2010 from 7.3 in 2008.

As per the study Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are among countries with the sharpest rise in affordability. Relative costs fell 67.4 percent in 2010 from two years ago in Sri Lanka, behind 75.4 percent for Bhutan and ahead of Bangladesh’s 65.2 percent.

The study said that consumers worldwide were paying an average price of 18 percent less for ICT services than two years ago, with broadband prices falling 50 percent. Mobile costs have fallen 22 percent and fixed telephones 7 percent.

It said that in developing countries fixed broadband service costs had dropped 52 percent, compared to 35 percent in developed countries.