We want STD at 10p/min

TRAI had last year recommended unrestricted domestic telephony which would have allowed mobile subscribers in India to route their STD calls via the Internet, thus making them very cheap, nearly 10p/minute

However, the telecom operators like vodafone, idea cellular and airtel are opposing the move to allow free domestic telephony because they had paid huge licence fees of around 1600Cr that allows them to provide STD services to their customer and allowing domestic Internet telephony will cause them loss in revenues and provide an advantage to ISPs

Why should the customer have to suffer for the poor judgement on part of the cellular operators. Nobody forced them to pay such huge amounts for the licence. They didn't have foresight on the potential of the Internet for which they must pay the price but instead they are bullying the TRAI into preventing the ISPs from providing a cheaper and better option for the consumers.