With all the major mobile operators coming out with a per-second billing plan, sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will now reconsider whether a consultation paper is required to examine that operators mandatorily provide this as an option.

?We will examine whether a consultation paper is now required or not. If at all we go ahead with the consultation process, it would be to ensure that what operators are providing today is not withdrawn tomorrow,? a Trai official said.

Early last month, Trai chairman JS Sarma had said he?s examining the feasibility of coming out with a consultation paper to examine that operators provide per-second billing options as one of their several plans.

The move towards per-second billing by operators got accelerated with the country?s largest operator Bharti Airtel coming out with a plan on Friday. Idea Cellular, the country?s fifth largest player followed suit with a similar plan on Saturday. Vodafone-Essar?s spokesperson confirmed to FE that a per-second billing plan was being offered by the company in 10 circles and would soon be extended to the remaining circles.

Per-second billing was first offered by the country?s sixth largest operator, Tata Teleservices Ltd, in June. Shyam Sistema and Aircel followed suit. The country?s second-largest operator Reliance Communications hasn?t moved to a per-second billing as yet but has slashed tariffs for local as well as STD tariffs to flat 50 paise per minute on calls made to all networks.

Industry experts agree that with Bharti joining the fray, the per-second billing plan has now become an industry standard much ahead of any regulatory guideline.

Speaking exclusively to FE, Anil Sardana, managing director, TTSL, the company which pioneered the concept, said, ??As far as other industry players also embracing similar plans like the pay per second option, we welcome the move as it will benefit the Indian telecom user?especially considering that these same players were critical of the concept when we at Tata DoCoMo pioneered it.

The success of our innovation is evident from the fact that we emerged as the number one operator in the country in terms of new subscriber additions in the last two months?.

Explaining the rationale for coming with the scheme, Sardana said, ?Given the scant amount of spectrum that we have received from the government, it was our stated intent to come out with plans that focused on efficiency and on value for customers. It was this approach that saw us launch the ?pay per use concept? with Tata DoCoMo, our GSM mobile service. We are happy with the good response to our transparent offering to Indian telecom consumers and I am happy to report that we are also seeing healthy Arpus from them. Similarly, we offered the ground-breaking ?pay per call? concept from our CDMA brand, Tata Indicom, which has also been widely accepted by our customers?.

The pressure on Airtel was immense. In the last two months (August and September), Tata Tele beat it in terms of net subscriber additions at 7.4 million against Bharti?s 5.3 million. Barring these two months, Bharti was always the one adding the highest net subscriber month on month. In fact, Tata Tele added more number of subscribers since June this year when the per-second scheme was launched than what it added in a year?s time.

Speaking to FE, Atul Bindal, president (mobility services), Bhart Airtel, however, denied that Bharti was joining any kind of tariff war by running for the lowest denominator. ?Our per minute charge is different, it?s 1 paise per second for local and STD calls to Airtel numbers and 1.20 paise for calls made to other networks. So we are giving the benefits of our scale and the largest network to our subscribers while charging a premium for calls made on other networks. It?s different than dropping tariffs on a rack rate basis,? Bindal told FE.

In the case of Idea or TTSL the call charges are same on and off-net.