Dead End

Sri Lanka on Thursday scrapped plans to allow free incoming calls to mobile phones, despite phenomenon success among its Asian neighbours, the telecom watchdog said.



Sri Lanka on Thursday scrapped plans to allow free incoming calls to mobile phones, despite phenomenon success among its Asian neighbours, the telecom watchdog said. Mobile operators have been lobbying for a caller party pays system or CPP, which allows free incoming calls to over three million users.

But the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission is abandoning earlier plans after 4,080 people wrote in August opposing the move.

"I am for it, but we cant proceed with it, because of heavy costs incurred to marginal users like pensioners and payphone users.

We have to balance the scales even though we are for a growth in the mobile sector," TRC's Director Legal, P R Amarasiri told reporters.

TRC pushed for CPP implementation way back as early 2000, as mobile communications is cheaper and faster to deploy in rural hamlets.

However, there were disagreements over the mobile termination charges, where a fixed line user had to pay an average Rs.

5.00 more to call a cellular phone.

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