Abhinav Singh

BANGALORE: Spice Telecom, a cellular phone service provider in the Karnataka circle, has said that BSNL’s CellOne tariff rates are discriminatory and unjust. Spice is also seriously considering to revise its tariff rates as it sees lower tariff rates being offered by CellOne as a potential threat.

While talking to CNS, Sean Dexter, Managing Director, Spice Telecom Karnataka Circle, said, "The move by BSNL to offer free incoming calls received on CellOne’s network from BSNL and its mobile network while charging the incoming calls received from private networks, is very discriminatory in nature and we plan to appeal against this discriminatory step."

Speaking further he said that Spice is left with no choice but to seriously reconsider its own tariff rates. Spice is also foreseeing a certain shift in the number of its customers who are likely to shift to CellOne. Commenting on this Dexter said, "We definitely see a certain shift in the number of our customers who are most likely to shift to CellOne but only on an experimental basis. We are confident that they are going to revert back to our services as the services we offer are of high quality."

With regard to the value added services being offered by CellOne Spice doesn’t foresee any major threat as Dexter remarked that their services are far better when compared to CellOne’s services. But Spice is gearing up to take this competition head on.

Dexter added, "Of course BSNL has a large network and it would provide tough competition to us, but we have to see how other private networks in the country respond to CellOne services."