Now you don’t need to think twice before calling your relatives and friends abroad. Telecom operators are offering attractive International Subscriber Dialling (ISD) rates some as low as 30 paise per minute.

Airtel

After slashing 3G tariffs, telecom operators are competing to give the lowest ISD rates. On an average, an international call to the US from a mobile phone can cost anywhere between Rs 6.4 and Rs 10.

Bharti Airtel is the latest entrant to this price war with a special offer for high-end subscribers.

A call from an Airtel phone to the US which used to cost Rs 6.4 per minute will now cost Rs 1.99 per minute for high end users. The operator has also brought down tariffs for calls to other countries, including the UK, Singapore and Canada.

MTS, the telecom brand of Sistema Shyam Teleservices, will be offering a ‘Flat 30 paise’ rate for calls to the US and Canada.

“The costs have come down for all operators. The major cost for ISD is the carrier cost that has come down consistently over the last one year. The surge in the ISD traffic is directly proportional to the fall in the costs. All operators are likely to bring down rates,” said an industry expert.

Tata DoCoMo also offers an attractive plan for ISD calls. With an activation pack of Rs 59 (valid for 30 days), calls can be made at one paise a second to the US and the UK.

These reduced ISD rates are hovering close to the cheap ISD facility available on the MTNL land line.

To make international calls cheaper, MTNL had introduced special ISD rates for land-line users in 2010. International calls via the land- line can be made between Re 1 and Rs 2 a minute (for the US).

internet players

The tariffs are falling at a time when Internet players, including Skype and Yahoo!, are using Voice over Internet Protocol to take away market from traditional players.

>priya.s@thehindu.co.in

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