New Delhi, March 9 :     The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today announced a 31.5 per cent increase in telephone rentals in metros and a 40 per cent hike for subscribers in rural areas. The regulatory authority also slashed long-distance domestic call rates by 45 per cent and international call charges by over 50 per cent in stages over a three-year period beginning from April 1. In the first year (1999-2000), international call rates will be cut by 18-29 per cent, depending on the country. Telephone subscribers in urban areas will have to pay a monthly rental of Rs 120 to Rs 250, depending on the type of exchange they are connected to against the existing rental of Rs 50-190. Rural subscribers will have to pay a rental of Rs 70 per month ? a Rs 20 increase over the existing rate. TRAI also cut the number of bi-monthly free calls to 120 from 150 in cities and to 150 from 250 in rural areas. Further, the first 500 calls will cost Re 1 each in urban centres and 80 paise each in rural areas. Every additional call will cost a uniform Rs 1.20 each in both rural and urban areas. Those who make 500 calls or less bi-monthly have been classified as low-user subscribers and will be charged 80 paise per call in rural areas and Re 1 in urban centres. TRAI said this specially-designated category accounted for 70 per cent of the subscriber base. The upshot of the tariff recast and the reduction in the number of free calls is that a telephone subscriber in any of the metros who makes between 500 to 1,000 calls bi-monthly will find his bill escalate by a maximum of Rs 340 ? Rs 120 on account of the increase in the rental, and Rs 220 on account of the enhanced call charges. Low user subscribers in rural areas with an exchange capacity of 1,000 lines will have to pay a monthly rental of only Rs 70; in urban areas, they will be charged Rs 120 per month ? a 140 per cent increase over the existing Rs 50. Subscribers connected to small exchanges with 1,001-30,000 connections will be charged a monthly rental of Rs 120, while those subscribers connected to an exchange with one lakh lines will be charged Rs 180. Subscribers connected to exchanges with a capacity of one lakh and more will have to pay Rs 250 per month. Subscribers who make more than 500 calls bi-monthly ? categorised as general user subscribers ? will have to pay higher rentals in the subsequent two years ? 2000-01 and 2001-02. In the case of exchanges with over 1 lakh lines, the rentals will rise to Rs 280 and Rs 310 respectively. For rural and urban exchanges with a capacity of 30,000 to 1 lakh lines, the rentals will go up to Rs 200 and Rs 220 in the second and third years. In the case of exchanges with a capacity of 1,000 to 30,000 lines, the rentals will rise to Rs 140 in the 2000-01 and Rs 160 in 2001-02. The new peak hour pulse rate will be 14 seconds for distances up to 200 km, five seconds up to 500 km and 3.5 seconds up to 1,000 km and 2.5 seconds above 1,000 km. Deposits sought by service providers will not exceed 12 months? rental, the regulator said. Pay more for that mobile Monthly rentals for cellular subscribers have been increased from Rs 156 to Rs 600.The air time tariff has been brought down to Rs 6 per minute, a third of the current rate. However, the pulse rate for calculating calls has been fixed at 20 seconds. For paging service providers, a monthly rental of Rs 300 has been fixed for alpha-numeric pagers and Rs 175 per month for numeric pagers against a current rate of Rs 250 and Rs 150 respectively. This is the first time the tariff structure is being fixed by TRAI; until now, the rates were set by the Department of Telecom (DoT). Announcing the new rate structure today, TRAI chairman S.S. Sodhi said, ?We still have a long way to go, but we are confident that we will reach the objective of competitive pricing of telecom services in India.? While reducing international call rates, TRAI gave telecom operators the freedom to fix the peak hours. At present, DoT has fixed 17 day hours as peak hours in agreement with foreign telecom companies. There is no change in the tariff for Integrated Switched Digital Network and Internet charges. TRAI will conduct a detailed study on these two services later.