A Moral Chat on Per-second Billing:
Hysterical adoption of tariff plans by subscribers made TRAI to regulate telecom billing mandatory at one second pulse for user benefit. Enthusiastically all the operators jumped on to the bandwagon by following the foot traces of Tata Docomo, which introduced its one second billing phenomenon by second quarter of this year.
Recently, it is sighted that “Per-second billing may not be the best option always”. By this plan, a shopkeeper tires out a fortnight’s talk time in just a week and later only he realized the fact that he was by paying only for what he uses. The scenario is that he was earlier using a tariff plan of 30 paise per minute before he migrates to the one paisa per second plan. His calls lasted for an average three minutes; but he ended up paying 180 paise per call in the new one-second-billing plan, compared to 90 paise earlier.
Various researches and reports on “Per-second billing” led by different groups postulated the following facts,
• This move could lead the industry to cost them billions of rupees.
• In terms of revenue there will be a sharp fall of 10-15%, this is because all the telecom operators has adopted the same plan.
• Per-second billing will cause a whip in prepaid customers seeking operators who offer this tariff plan.
• Drastic turmoil will arise if the subscribers migrate to this plan without understanding their calling patterns and if their existing tariff plans are less than 60 paise per minute.
• So it is better to position an alternative plan for those who needs longer call durations. Idea cellular has achieved this by introducing an alternative plan at 40 paise per minute.
• The one second billing tariff plan on local calls implies that a 60 second call will be charged 60 paise but the calling rates in most high tele-density telecom circles are way below that mark.
• It is useful only for those subscribers whose local calls are of a very short duration; less than 60 seconds but it is detrimental for a subscriber who makes longer duration calls.
• Tariff plans less than 60 paise per minute for a local call will not favor majority of subscribers making longer duration calls.
However, it is revealed that the one-second billing is a marketing ruse that will neither hurt the industry nor be a major game changer for the industry.