Telcos warned by Trai over cell phone call rate hikes?

changes in tariffs are being continuously monitored.

"Forbearance does not mean that we have closed our eyes. Forbearance reposes faith on operators and we realise there is competition in the market," TRAI Chairman Rahul Khullar told PTI.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) around

mid of this month decided to continue with forbearance in

tariff regime that gives freedom to decide on call and other

services rates.

The TRAI Chairman said that if there is market where

competition is driving tariff down then forbearance is

reasonable action.

Indian mobile phone industry, known for the lowest priced

telecom services rates, has now started seeing northward

movement with continuous increase in tariffs by leading

telecom operators -- Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular and Vodafone.

These four operators account for more than 65 per cent

mobile phone connections in the country with 58.41 crore

customers on their wireless network as of November 2012.

Telecom operators Idea Cellular, Vodafone and Reliance

Communications are learnt to have increased call charges in the range of 20 per cent to 33 per cent over space of four months.

There was another hike noticed in mobile internet

services within last one month period by Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular in the range of 25 per cent to 30 per cent.

In the third round, telecom operator Airtel and Idea

Cellular took promotional scheme route to hike call rates by slashing free minutes in the range of 10 per cent to 25 per cent and

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