The carrier said in a statement that the new tariffs have been announced inline with the national infotech policy and were approved by the board at ameeting in Mumbai on Friday.

It has effected a 25 per cent cut for all satellite and optical fibreprivate leased line customers while a 50 per cent reduction has beenannounced in the normal international private leased lines tariffs for allInternet Service Providers (ISPs) taking the facility from VSNL to foreignInternet networks. The new tariffs will be available on both satellites andthe fibre connectivity and will bring down the charges of connectivity fromRs 189.75 lakh to Rs 94.87 lakh per annum.

VSNL has reduced the TCP/IP Internet tariffs in the range of 25-30 per centfor 25 hours to 1000 hours, expanding the duration of use to three years andproviding additional megabytes space for e-mails. The standard 100 hourswill now cost Rs 1,500 against the earlier Rs 1,800 while the 500 hourscosts Rs 5,500 against Rs 7,250. The 1000-hour connection will now becharged Rs 9,500 while earlier there no such plan. The student account for100 hours will have a duration of only a year.

There will be further 50 per cent reduction for usage on weekdays between 11pm and 8 am while on Sunday, the reduction is effective fullday. It decidedto allow a 20 per cent discount on the private leased line charges to 100per cent export oriented units, over and above the 25 per cent announced fornormal customers.

VSNL has heavily slashed the registration charges for ISDN from Rs 5,000 toRs 100. It has reduced the ISDN charges in the range of 40-50 per cent,prescribing an extended time limit of three years against the one yearearlier for the usage of the allotted hours. Under the plan, the 50 hoursusage will now cost Rs 1,570 against the earlier Rs 2,150. The 100 hoursplan will now cst Rs 2,850 against earlier Rs 5,500 while the 500 hourscosts Rs 10,450 with the earlier charges being Rs 19,000.

As per the new co-location charges, VSNL will now charge Rs 2 lakh for 10gigabyte per month with an incremental data transfer charges of Rs 2000 permonth. The maximum offered in 100 gb per month at Rs 6 lakhs with anincremental charge of Rs 500. In the shared web hosting on VSNL server, fora 100 mb data storage space, the annual tariff works out to be Rs 60000 witha one time set up charge of Rs 5000. The monthly data transfer can be 1gigabyte in this case and this account will have 10 e-mail IDs.