Free Roaming likely from next year

[Xen]

The communications ministry will do away with roaming charges paid by mobile users when travelling within India from 2013, telecom secretary R Chandrasekhar told ET, even as he added that it would not be possible to specify the exact month of execution.

The finance ministry asked the telecom department to submit the road map for implementation of the 'one nation-free roaming' that was announced by communications minister Kapil Sibal earlier this year. In May, the Union Cabinet had approved the National Telecom Policy - 2012 that aimed at doing away with roaming charges and introducing a pan-India mobile permit (unified licence) that would enable mobile phone firms to offer all communication services.

"Our first priority is the upcoming spectrum auctions. At the same time, we are working on the Unified Licence (UL) and we want to finalise this by December. Once the UL regime is rolled out post December, concepts like 'One nation-free roaming' that is part of it will be introduced. This will happen sometime next year (2013). At this stage it will be impossible to specify the exact timeframe," Chandrasekhar said.

This consumer-centric move, which is bound to bring down the mobile bills of frequent travellers, will dent revenues of India's beleaguered telecom companies since roaming charges account for about 10% of the sector's annual sales.

 

[raj]

The government is mulling abolishing roaming charges in the country from 2013. The finance ministry is believed to have directed the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to work on the plan so that it could be speedily implemented.

Once the 'one nation-free roaming' as mentioned in the new telecom policy is set rolling mobile users will be able to get incoming calls free of charge and outgoing calls at local rates while travelling anywhere in the country. Recently the government approved new telecom policy
But the move put extra burden on the telecom service providers whose margins are shrinking due to uncertainty and the fierce competition.

According to insiders, the move will ‘make people feel good” as the government is getting flak from the political parties and the people on price rise and corruption issues.
Mobile companies are however against the scraping of roaming charges as this will significantly impact their revenues. Operators charge Re 1 per minute for incoming calls and Rs 1.50 per minute for outgoing calls while roaming. SMS is also priced at Rs 1.50 per message.

Source