The Spice Nepal Private Limited (SNPL), the first private cell phone company and Nepal Telecom (NT) have announced new tariff rates after they reached to an interconnection agreement.

According to new tariff rates, calls from post-paid Mero Mobile to cell phones of NT would cost Rs. 4.50 per minute while calls from pre-paid Mero mobile to NT’s mobile would cost five rupees per minute.

Similarly, calls made from post-paid and pre-paid Mero Mobile to landline operated by NT would cost three rupees and Rs.3.50 respectively.

The new rates came into effect from Friday after the approval of the Nepal Telecom authority, the telecom regulatory body of the country.

Similarly, calls made from post-paid and pre-paid Mero Mobile to cell phones issued by NT from outside the valley would cost Rs. 5.75 and 6.25 per minute. However no charges have to be paid for receiving calls made from either cell phone or landline of NT.

In the meantime NT has also announced new tariff rates that would be applicable in calls to Mero Mobile. Local calls made from NT’s post-paid and pre-paid would cost Rs. 4.50 and 5.00 per minute respectively except taxes during peak hour (8 a.m. to 8 p.m.).

The Telecom has also stated that in every local, short distance and long distance calls made from NT’s fixed line to Mero Mobile, customers have to pay one rupees extra on the existing tariff rates.

SNPL had commercially launched its service on September 17.