New RCom plan ‘abolishes’ irritation of roaming, STD charges

The Anil Ambani-run telecom service provider Reliance Communications has become India's first mobile operator to do away with the irksome 'incoming roaming charges' as well as the differencesbetween local and long-distance calls within the country.

These moves have long been promised by telecom companies as well as regulatory authorities, but RCom's 'One India, One Rate' plans are the first to actually implement them for both post-paid and pre-paid GSM services.

Under this offer, there will be no difference between local, STD and roaming charges and customers will be charged only their local home plan tariffs, even while roaming anywhere in India.

Quaintly, long-distance calls are still termed STD in India, where 'straight trunk dialling' was considered a major evolutionary step in the pre-cellular phone days, when people had to book 'trunk calls' hours in advance for a call even to a nearby town, and then stand by their phone for it to come through.

''We are delighted to launch the One India, One Rate Plans in the country, which abolishes differentiated tariffs for roaming, STD and local calls in India. When business has no boundaries, then tariffs should also be seamless and customer-friendly - thus, incoming calls while roaming will now be free on the RCom network,'' Gurdeep Singh, chief executive officer consumer business said.

The caveat here is that the concessions apply only to incoming calls – customers will still have to pay extra for making long-distance calls. Nonetheless, this is the first time a mobile services provider has introduced free roaming packs across all circles and even on calls received from other networks.