MTNL might cut their STD charges further

MTNL (Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited) has some more good news for the telecom customers in India. The government owned telecom company MTNL has announced that they are planning to reduce its STD charges for its landlines in Delhi and Mumbai. This should happen after the company applies for the National Long Distance (NLD) license to the Department of Telecom (DOT).

The company has in fact already indicated to DoT for its move to have an NLD license after the fees were dropped recently to just around Rs. 2.5 crores. This would also mean that MTNL would be saving a lot on carriage charges it pays to private and other NLD operators to carry its STD traffic.

As soon as MTNL gets it NLD license, they would no longer be paying high prices for these STD services leading to savings which might be further passed on to its subscribers. There is also a possibility that MTNL and BSNL would be setting up a joint venture (JV) company enabling them to establish a submarine cable link before this fiscal.

For now, MTNL and BSNL are using the infrastructure provided by VSNL, Reliance, and Bharti to route their international traffic. BSNL is in the process of starting their operations in the international long distance calling field. MTNL lacks an INLD license.