INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - JANUARY 1^st - JANUARY 15^th - 2008

BHARTI CUTS CALL RATE TO RE 1, RCOM FOLLOWS

Bharti Airtel has triggered a fresh round of tariff wars in the pre-paid segment. The company has cut its local call rates to a flat Re 1 per minute and said that all its prepaid mobile customers whose existing local call rates was more than Re 1 per minute will be migrated to the revised tariff without any conditions attached from January 3 onwards. Within hours, Reliance Communications responded by slashing local call tariffs for both new and existing pre-paid customers to 99 paise per minute. This marks up to a 50% reduction in tariffs for RCOM's pre-paid users, who currently pay Rs 1.99 per minute and Rs 1.79 per minute respectively on lifetime and freedom plans. Other GSM players such has Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular are also expected to follow-suit and reduce prepaid tariffs soon. Industry sources said even BSNL and MTNL will extend similar tariff plans to their subscribers soon.