While domestic calls have become expensive over the couple of years with telecom operators doing away with freebies, international call rates are falling due to rising competition between players.
On Thursday, telecom firm Aircel launched a prefixed based calling that offers international calls at one paisa per second.
Internet firm Nimbuzz had earlier come up with a similar tariff for all domestic users who make international calls.
Aircel is offering the prefixed based calling pack to select top called destinations like US, Canada, Singapore, China, UK (fixed line) at one paisa per second without paying any additional charges.
The caller has to just dial a four-digit number first followed by the intended mobile number.
An internal study by Nimbuzz puts the international calling industry in India at $1.5 billion.
According to Aircel, the US, Canada, the UK, China and Singapore are the top calling destinations for India.
“Top calling destinations from India are the US, Canada, the UK, China and Singapore. Traffic to these destinations is 35%,” the company said.
“With the growth in the economy there has been a phenomenal rise in the business travellers visiting international destination. It is one of the prime factors giving boost to this industry,” Amit Sachdeva, partner at consultancy firm EY told dna.
According to another telecom expert, it is easier for players which have parent or partner firm located in the countries to which the calls are being made than the ones who have to use other operator’s network to conclude calls.
Last year telecom firms such as Vodafone and Reliance Communications too had slashed their international roaming tariffs. Vodafone offered packages which included a flat 95% cut on data charges and up to 78% cut on voice calls while on roaming.
Before that Reliance Communications had slashed roaming rates in the US.
“There has been some phenomenal changes in the Indian calling. India has globalised in terms of family, friends and business. Indian families have globalised. Today, almost three crore Indians are living outside India,” Vikas Saxena, CEO, Nimbuzz told dna.
“More so, the importance of these markets can be ascertained by the fact that a leading Indian operator generates 1,500 crore minutes of international calls annually,” he said.
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