Telephone call rates charged by Mobile companies

                                       
I had the opportunity to interact with one of the outsourced executives of Airtel who exchanged useful information.
All of us have at least one mobile connection and a land line number at our homes.  The mobiles are both prepaid and post paid and the land line generates a monthly bill for the usage.  The service providers have different categories of tariff out of which a customer is forced to select one that suits him the best.  The service providers load at least 500 to 800% of profit for each application or use by the customer and 90% of the customers are all prepaid mobile customers which means the customer pays in advance for what he proposes to use?  The company is profited completely as the entire money or subscription is held with them as advance and deducted as and when calls are made from the mobiles!  This is almost similar to the restaurants that charges you upfront and makes payments to its vendors after 45 days of credit!!  Added to this is the caller tunes for which the service provider charges Rs 30/- per mobile.  The Airtel executive further informed that in Tamilnadu alone, Airtel has a subscription base of  2 crores and due to their aggressive, outsourced  marketing for caller tunes, nearly 90% of the users subscribe to a caller tune of their choice by paying Rs30/- per month which generates an income of 60 crores of Rupees every month and thereafter!  These tunes are directly bought from the producers of the tunes or songs at a small throwaway price and list them under their assets for life long!!
Yet another point of revenue is the Short text message which is known as SMS for which various tariffs are charged by telecoms companies ranging from 50paise to Re 1 per message!  Millions of messages are sent everyday across the country and the revenue earned is mind boggling!!
The telecoms operator earns several crores of rupees every month and the cost to him is only the spectrum wave that he buys from the government and the rent that he pays to the satellite providers through which the signals are gained on the earth.  Now, the satellite is again fixed in certain certain Geo-stationery orbit and beams signals right across the globe covering vast shades of land that comes within  the range!  Whether you make a local call or an STD call or an international call, the usage of the signal through the satellite remains constant  whereas the service provider charges you different tariffs for locals/STD and international calls!!  There is nothing extra that he spends for giving the consumer this benefit!  I was told that Airtel has recently fortrayed into Bangla Desh and Srilanka and have introduced the magic spell of mobile services which still remains an attraction for the millions who subscribe to it by paying  rentals and call charges and opting for either prepaid or post paid connections!!  The amount collected from an individual may be small but when you calculate the revenue generated countrywide, it describes and makes you understand the lure, allocation and distribution of the spectrum 2 G scam, master minded by the central minister who is languishing in Jail along with some top honchos of private telecoms companies!!
Even the media which makes tantrums about all other events do not mention anything about this as they themselves are contributors to this revenue!  Most of the TV shows or programs have some kind of voting which invites the viewer to choose some option and SMS it to a particular number.  This was very popular in KBC show anchored by Amitabh Bachan.  The Telecoms companies, in order to realise more profit announced that the competition SMS would attract Rs3.50/SMS unlike an ordinary SMS which costs only 0.50paise depending on the service provider.  The show is being witnessed by at least a tenth of the population meaning about more than 5 crores people watch the show and even if 10% of them participate in the quiz competition and send SMS, the companies would benefit about Rs 17.50 crores!!! This figure would make anyone think and rethink many times as to how much is the revenue for the Telecoms companies who associate themselves with the TV channels and lure public participation!!  The business of Mobile telephony is very huge and can not be estimated by an ordinary civilian unless someone tries to explain this function in details.
Out of curiosity I asked him as to why the services are going from bad to worse, the executive replied that Airtel has outsourced everything except marketing and accounts to various agencies who are not bothered about the Service aspect and concentrate only on fresh revenue yielding connections thereby throwing the ISO standards and norms to winds!!
The mobile companies can very well extend some courtesies to the public by making at least 100 SMS free for all connections and making one rate for all calls irrespective of whether it is local or STD or ISD??  The enormous profit that they make can be distributed to public justifying social distribution and its principles!!