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Indian Minister Says Telecom Companies Should Only Charge For Data

Posted by timothy on from the remember-that-voice-is-data dept.

bhagwad writes "In the US, telecom carriers are trying their best to hold on to depleting voice revenues. Over in India, the telecom minister urged carriers to stop charging for voice calls and derive all their revenues only from data plans. Is this kind of model sustainable, where voice becomes an outmoded and free technology, and carriers turn entirely into dumb pipes which have no control over what passes over them? This is a step forward and hopefully will make Internet service more like a utility."

12 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Re:subsidize phone calls by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think he's probably saying that voice and text messages are hugely overpriced. I don't know about voice but SMSes certainly are.

  2. In coming calls are free in India. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting
    According the the law, the phone companies can not charge for airtime of incoming calls. Most people use prepaid phones, with just enough money to keep the phone active. But they would not dial out any calls. Many very poor people use these phones. Street vegetable vendors, unofficial jitney taxis, servant maids, low paid gate security fellas. ...

    And they have developed some social customs regarding "missed call etiquette". Typically it is understood that you never accept a call from certain classes of people, drivers, maids, delivery boys etc. They call, let it ring once, and they hang up. You return the call. Sometimes I have answered these calls and they would go, "Sir, why did you answer the call? I was giving you a missed call, sir". Usually I give them a few rupees to make amends.

    Very typical conversation is:

    "Mom, going to the dance class".

    "OK, dear, do give me a missed call as soon as you get there"

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:In coming calls are free in India. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Informative

      BTW typical airtime charges for prepaid phones: 1 Rupee per minute for out going calls. Incoming calls are free. Incoming texts are free. Outgoing texts are 0.5 Rs per text. Data charges are typically 100 Rs for 2 GB. Consider 1 Rupee to be 2 cents in USA. International calls were 6 Rs per minute. But this trip they had a promotion and I got USA for 2 Rs per minute.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  3. It's ALL data... by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What drives me bananas about these plans is in the end it's all data anyway. Whether you're updating Facebook or chatting with Granny, in the end it's just bits streaming to and from your phone. In the old analog cell phone days a case could be made for a user using up a circuit-switched channel for their voice call, but today with packet switching it seems irrelevant.

    1. Re:It's ALL data... by MrZilla · · Score: 4, Informative

      But it's not, exactly. Unless you are using LTE, voice calls are still set up as if they were circuit switched, including allocating resources throughout the network. Only data calls are handled as pure packet switched best effort calls.

      But the biggest reason for separating voice call costs is probably that if you are calling someone who uses a different operator, your operator needs to pay for the use of that network (weather mobile or land line). At least around here, calling someone who is using the same operator is usually free, but calling someone using another operator will cost you a per minute charge.

      --
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      int 21h
  4. Voice IS data. by gehrehmee · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Voice is data. It happens to not be very much data, based on how we compress it. Charge it for what it is.

    There is the little catch that we want it to be low latency, and in that sense it may well be worth charging a bit of a premium for it.

    --
    "You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
  5. Quality of service by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Voice is lower total bandwidth but requires low latency and no interruptions to be high quality. When data connections are not strained then there is no challenge to provide that but it can become important and thus much more expensive than the data it bears. Personally I do use VOIP and so I know it's not as good as non-voip some of the time.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  6. Re:subsidize phone calls by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not if they have a modern network, and are honest. Modern networks are completely ip on the inside. Price to customer pr megabyte of voice traffic is approximately 100x that of the same volume on a data plan.
    But note that carriers production cost on data is very high nowadays, due to very large build costs. Don't know about India, but in western networks data usage have been growing by about 80-90% year-over-year the last few years - that is, exponentially. Revenue is only increasing in the low double digits, far lower than cost. Equipment cost is also falling, but not quickly enough. In the long run this is unsustainable. That's the reason for the more restrictive data plans and price hikes you have been seing the last few years. For many carriers, voice is susidizing data right now.

    Source: I'm technical management at a large telco.

  7. Re:subsidize phone calls by davester666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Two things will happen:

    1) New phones will be changed so that both voice and SMS's are sent over the data channel
    2) Suddenly, every carrier will be all over HD Voice. Who needs compression, you need to be able to clearly hear the other party and they need to clearly hear you!

    Carriers have the knowledge and experience to game whatever system politicians can come up with, even if the carrier's don't millions of dollars helping to craft new rules/regulations.

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  8. Re:subsidize phone calls by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hell I recently read an article (sorry I didn't think to save the bookmark) that MSFT was doomed in the mobile space precisely because the carriers don't want competition from Skype and are punishing MSFT for buying it by refusing to give WinPhone the same push and deals they do with the Droid phones. Considering how badly they screw you on voice and data? Certainly sounds believable to me.

    This is why the whole "pushing smartphones" frankly scares the living hell out of me, AT&T in my area has pretty much stopped bothering to add so much as a single foot or Mbps to their DSL offerings and are instead pushing cell phones where they can make insane profits and the cableco has decided to simply gouge the customers they have instead of adding more customers and running lines. Imagine a world where you can't get on the net except with a smartphone with no tether ability? Makes the carriers happy, they can gouge away, makes the content owners happy, you won't have enough bandwidth to do anything that would piss them off, but it would royally suck for the users as you'd be stuck on these crappy little screens with no hope of getting anything better.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  9. Re:subsidize phone calls by snakeplissken · · Score: 4, Insightful

    47% of the population gets a FREE (as in you pay for it) ObamaPhone

    actually it's a reaganphone if anything, since the scheme that provides them was introduced under his regime...
    i guess that makes reagan a dirty socialist? :)

    snake

  10. 47% lie stated often enough is still a lie by voss · · Score: 4, Informative

    The program he's talking about in fact serves about 12 million people which is about 4% of the population not 47%.

    http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/kimkomando/story/2012-06-01/low-income-lifeline-plan/55315532/1