Telenor has increased call setup charges, one of its kind fee that Pakistani telcos charge their customers for making a regular voice call.
According to a note published on Telenor’s website, new call setup charges on Telenor’s network will be 15 Paisas (including tax) for each call that its prepaid customers will make from now onwards.
Earlier call setup charges on Telenor’s network were 10 paisas plus tax or 12 paisas including taxes.
Call setup charge is a one time fee for each voice call, regardless of its duration.
Currently only Telenor has increased these charges, but as we have seen in the past, it is likely that other operators will follow Telenor but with a gap of few days to avoid any action from CCP.
Call Setup charges were first introduced by Pakistani mobile phone companies back in 2013 to charge customers with literally unlimited voice bundles.
PTA, after receiving complaints from consumers, had asked operators to withdraw call setup charges but operators didn’t listen and continued charging call setup fee by saying that PTA is not mandated to regulate prices.
PTA, to avoid the situation again, introduced a regulation through which PTA has now more control over pricing issues of the industry as well.
We will have to see if PTA will block this new increase in call setup charges or not.
