Tuesday, September 23, 2008

International Call rates

My previous post had a comment which talked about the International call rates being ridiculous and also the charges on Mobile calls and SMSes. So this post came into existence to highlight some of those things.

First of all the Ministry of Communication in Kuwait has an official website. By the way the International call rates/tariffs are mentioned on their official website. But I would say that it is an old list which was valid before January 1st, 2008. You can CLICK HERE to see it. Ofcourse since January 1st, 2008 the call rates fell by 20% and the new updated list can be see on another site. CLICK HERE to view the current call rates/tariffs. Here you can also see the old rates and new rates.

The main problem with the above call rates are that they are still costly when compared to the rest of the gulf. The sadder part is that if you call any country, the call rate from that side will be cheaper. Example: A call from Kuwait to India will cost 240 fils/minute (KD 0.240; that is Indian Rupees 40 with current market rate as KD 5.900 for Rs 1000). Whereas a call from India to Kuwait will cost Rs 8/minute (Indian Rupee 8 = KD 0.048; that is 48 fils considering the above exchange rate).

If one thinks this is the only difference then one should consider the fact that in Kuwait outgoing calls and incoming calls on mobiles do cost. So even if one gets a call from India he will have to pay for the incoming call on his mobile (50 fils per minute). Similarly if one makes a call from his mobile to India he will have to pay the call rate 240 fils plus 50 fils. I think these things have made internet telephony more popular in Kuwait. The above reasons make the Telecom sector in Kuwait very profitable. People are awaiting for reduction on local calls and SMSes. Probably this answer may be solved by the introduction of the new telecom company whose commercial brand VIVA got launched last week.

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