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 | | Friday, 8 February, 2002, 11:18 GMT India call charges set to halve  India's telecoms market is growing fast Telephone charges for calls out of India are set to fall by up to 50% when the market is liberalised on 1 April, according to a US telecoms operator planning to enter the market. This will allow both internet service providers and telecoms companies to compete head-on with the recently privatised monopoly carrier, VSNL. International calls from India are among the highest in the world and should fall by between 40% and 50%, said the US telecoms operator ITXC. The company plans to enter the market by offering web-based telephone calls via the internet service provider Data Access India, a subsidiary of Hong Kong's Pacific Century Cyberworks. Under pressure It is already happening in the national market where a private player earlier this month punctured inflated domestic long distance charges simply by announcing its presence.
VSNL's grip on the $1.5bn (�1bn) a year international calls market is set to weaken, a consultant's research report forecast. Its market share will dwindle by about half by 2004, Crisil Advisory Services and PA Consulting group predicted last month. Growing market At about $1 a minute, it is more than three times more expensive to call the US from India than it is to call India from the US. The imbalance in costs means there are about four times as many calls going into India as there are outgoing calls. Extensive demand for international calls should help fulfil the government's vision of growing the market by about 200% by 2010. This would make it the fastest growing telecoms market in the world this decade. | | See also:  Top Business stories now:  Links to more Business stories are at the foot of the page. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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