The beleaguered industry, which has been plagued by massive losses due to receding margins on one hand and huge licence fee dues on the other, has seen a mass exodus in the last one year. Now the pagers, which offer one way data transmission, will also have to fight a battle against two-way communication available at basic service rates, once WLL mobility is allowed.However, Mr Pravin Kumar, managing director, DSS Mobilink, warns that "Values will go down, even before WLL comes into play. With the current rate reduction, spurred by MTNL's entry, there has been a definite reduction in values."

It will affect the paging operators adversely and we are preparing ourselves to counter this threat by a massive reduction in prices, he added. While the paging operators are scheduled to meet this week to decide on the new prices, Mr Kumar did let out that prices are set to reduce by 50 per cent or so from the existing level of Rs 300 per month for alpha-numeric pagers and Rs 175 per month for numeric pagers. "The question now is how to make the service viable at these rates," he added.

Meanwhile, the paging companies are also trying to bring down the cost of pagers themselves and making them more affordable. While the government has agreed to the paging industry's demand of reducing the custom duties on pagers to 5 per cent from 25 per cent, it continues to charge a counterveiling duty (CVD) on pagers, which is equivalent to the excise duty.

This according to paging operators is unfair, since CVD is charged on imported products, to protect the interests of local manufacturers. However, since pagers are not manufactured in India, the government should not charge CVD in this case, since it is not applicable, explains Mr Kumar.