The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Saturday announced an 11-12 per cent increase in the monthly rental for basic (landline) telephone, while reducing the pulse duration for local calls to 2 minutes instead of the prevailing 3 minutes.

The new tariff and pulse rate would be applicable from April 1, 2003.

Free calls have been cut from 60 to 30 in urban areas and 75 to 50 in rural areas.

There would no free calls in the case of WLL-mobile services.

For distances up to 50 km, it will be local call charge (Rs 1.20 per 2 minutes), while for all other distance categories, TRAI has put a ceiling of Rs 8.40 per minute.

Basic telephone rental in cities has gone up from Rs 250 to Rs 280 per month.

At present, the basic telecom tariffs are subsidised. The monthly rental varies between Rs 70 to Rs 250 depending upon the areas and capacity of telephone exchange, while the call charges are Rs 1.20 for 3 minutes.

An earlier Business Standard report said that TRAI had decided to impose an access charge of 30 paise per minute on calls between the two networks in metros.

This has been done to create a level playing field between WLL and cellular operators.

As a result, the interconnect charge paid by cell operators in metro circles will come down from the current Rs 1.20 for 3 minutes to 30 paise a minute as part of the tariff package announced on Saturday.

For non-metro circles, the WLL operators will have to pay an access charge of 40 paise per minute to cell firms, while cell firms will have to shell out 60 paise a minute in return.

On fixed-line telephones, the regulator has proposed to bring down the number of free calls from 60 to 30 per month, the Business Standard reported.

Access charges for calls from one fixed-line phone to another will also be on a reciprocal basis.

As part of the review of basic telephone tariffs, TRAI has proposed to marginally increase monthly rentals for both the rural and urban sectors.

Customers in the rural segment who are now paying Rs 70 a month will continue to pay the same. Those paying Rs 120 a month will pay Rs 130 a month.

Customers on Rs 180 per month rentals will pay an additional 11 per cent with rentals slated to go up to Rs 200 a month. In case of urban consumers, the rentals will be revised by 12 per cent from Rs 250 a month to Rs 280.