Mobile bills set to rise as operators slash freebies

Mumbai: Your mobile bill is set to rise with two leading telecom companies—Bharti Airtel and Idea—deciding to cut back on promotional offers such as free talk time across a majority of circles, setting the stage for other operators to follow suit.      Although the rise would vary depending on the circle and tariff plan for post-paid users or the usage pattern for pre-paid users, in some cases  the increase in the monthly outgo may be as much as 25%. For instance, if you paid Rs 22 for 50 minutes of talk time as an Airtel customer, you will now get only 40 minutes. That translates into a 25% hike. Also, in some cases, the validity of the vouchers has been cut and the threshold of getting full talk time has been increased. So to avail of the full talk time benefit, a pre-paid user may now have to spend Rs 50-60 during a recharge, instead of getting the benefit during a Rs 30 recharge.  Double gas price: Oil min to govt      Power tariffs and public transport fares could soon go up across the country. The oil ministry has suggested that the government accept the Rangarajan panel's suggestion to double domestic gas price by linking it to an average of international hub prices and cost of imported liquid gas. P 25 Bharti, Idea shares rise 3-4%  Mumbai: Unlike Airtel, which went public with its move to reduce freebies in a bid to improve its margins, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular have not confirmed the price changes. Idea managing director Himanshu Kapania TOI that the company would evaluate price corrections after seeing Airtel's moves.      Vodafone indicated that it would follow other operators in pruning promotional offers. "We feel these were inevitable given the sharp input and energy price increases in the country. We are studying these moves individually across all our circles. We are inclined to follow to maintain consistency and competitive position though we haven't decided on our precise circle-wise moves," the company said in a statement.      The withdrawal of freebies has been done with the intent to improve the realized rate for the industry which varies between 27 paise per minute for new operators and 43 paise a minute for older players such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone.      Stiff competition has forced Indian telecom companies to offer among the cheapest call rates in the world. But they are finding it tough to sustain the tariffs, especially given the huge churn among users who tend to shift to an operator offering the lowest call rates. Portability is easy given that 95% of the mobile users in India are pre-paid customers. In recent months, however, companies have moved to raise rates and focus on profitability instead of blindly acquiring customer base.      The last big hike in tariffs happened in mid-2011 when customers had to pay 1.2 paise per second instead of 1 paise per second for voice calls.      Following Wednesday's moves, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular shares rose 3-4%. "We have spent on new spectrum, there is one-time fee so we have to evaluate the situation. But a big hike is not possible considering there is still hyper competition and over capacity still exists. Volumes have been impacted earlier when corrections have been implemented," said Idea's Kapania.