There may soon be good news for nearly 95% of India's 965 million mobile subscribers who use prepaid connections.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Friday initiated a consultation exercise to lower the processing fee on recharge vouchers. While the regulator has not given any preference, one of the three options suggested is to completely waive the processing fee on top-up vouchers, which operators say is used to meet their operational costs.
"This option may not adversely affect the revenue realisation of the service providers, as the existing tariff regulatory regime allows flexibility to the service providers for determining tariff for various services and that the cost for provision of services, including towards administering the top up vouchers can be recovered through various tariff items which are under forbearance," Trai said.
The other option is to move to a tiered structure of levying the processing fee, as there is a view in the regulatory establishment that the fee was especially higher in case of the lower value recharge coupons. It has looked at the option of a fixed charge of 50 paise as processing fee and 3% of the maximum retail price as the variable charge.
Read More : Prepaid processing charges may be cut - Times Of India
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Friday initiated a consultation exercise to lower the processing fee on recharge vouchers. While the regulator has not given any preference, one of the three options suggested is to completely waive the processing fee on top-up vouchers, which operators say is used to meet their operational costs.
"This option may not adversely affect the revenue realisation of the service providers, as the existing tariff regulatory regime allows flexibility to the service providers for determining tariff for various services and that the cost for provision of services, including towards administering the top up vouchers can be recovered through various tariff items which are under forbearance," Trai said.
The other option is to move to a tiered structure of levying the processing fee, as there is a view in the regulatory establishment that the fee was especially higher in case of the lower value recharge coupons. It has looked at the option of a fixed charge of 50 paise as processing fee and 3% of the maximum retail price as the variable charge.
Read More : Prepaid processing charges may be cut - Times Of India
