ISLAMABAD, June 22: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Wednesday reduced interconnect charges on calls made to mobile networks by 20 per cent. The mobile termination rate (MTR) would be cut by another 22 per cent after a year, the PTA announced.

The decision was announced after a meeting attended by representatives of the six mobile phone companies operating in the country and the Pakistan Telecommunication Company on Tuesday at PTA headquarters

The reduced rate of Rs1.60 per minute will be effective from Aug 1 for a year. It will go down to Rs1.25 for the following year.

The PTCL’s share for fixed-to-mobile calls will be reduced to Rs0.52 per minute from Rs0.80 for peak hours.

The rates for local calls in peak hours from fixed to mobile numbers will now be Rs2.12 per minute, excluding 15 per cent general sales tax, as compared to the previous Rs2.80.

The mobile termination rate was set at Rs2 per minute in 2002 for two years.

It said the decision would reduce the tariffs of fixed-to-mobile calls by more than 25 per cent on average and provide incentives to mobile phone operators to decrease their call rates.

The authority has also changed the charging basis for inter-operator settlements from per minute to internationally practised per second basis from Aug 1, 2006.

This will encourage operators to bill their customers on per second basis.