Indian telecom regulator TRAI has reportedly issued an order making it mandatory to offer at least one mobile plan billed at 1 paisa ($0.0002) per second.
The regulator has informed operators that they must offer at least one plan on a per-second billing basis among the up to 25 plans they are allowed to provide, The Hindu Business Linereported.
A per-second billing option must be given to prepaid and postpaid subscribers, and apply to both local and interstate calls.
But while operators appear happy to offer per-second billing options, some have taken issue with the 1 paisa per second cap.
An executive from one unnamed Indian operator told The Hindu that a 1 paisa plan is “not economical,” but that the company would be willing to offer 5 paisa or 10 paisa per second plans.
Per second billing has proved very popular with Indian consumers since Tata DoCoMo launched the first such plan in 2009, during a price war. Many operators quickly followed suit.
But the low-margin gambit of 1 paise per second calls has not been kind to operators' profits, and with a number of 2G players shutting up shop in the wake of the supreme court decision to cancel 122 telecom licenses, some operators had raised the prospect of abandoning the plans.