Mobile companies told to not charge more for calls to landline phones

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has said in a statement that the mobile companies are forcing customers to discard their landline connections by charging more for calls to these numbers.

They have now asked the mobile players in the country to stop the differential tariff between calls made to mobiles and landline phones.

A TRAI representative said: “The differential and higher charges levied by cellular service providers for calls to fixed lines do not have adequate justification. This can be viewed as an attempt to promote substitution of fixed line traffic by mobile traffic and may lead to forced substitution of fixed lines by mobiles, thereby reducing the target market for fixed line broadband.”

TRAI further said: “Service providers limited the benefit of reduction to their on-net calls instead of all types of calls to increase their subscriber base. Examination also reveals that even after abolition of per minute ADC on mobile to fixed calls, service providers continued to offer higher tariffs for mobile to fixed calls compared to mobile to mobile calls.”