DoT mulls merger of telecom circles

May also rationalise licence fees for service providers.

Keeping in mind the roaming issues for mobile subscribers, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is considering merging the 22 circles in which telecom operators offer services across India into bigger service areas.

“There are roaming issues attached to the 22 service areas. There should be an option to merge certain service areas, making a bigger service area. It could be either one service covering the entire country or four or five service areas, each covering a particular region,” DoT said in an internal note.

Currently, the country is divided into 22 licensed circles, wherein DoT gives a unified access service licence (UASL) to operators for offering mobile and landline services.

The merging of service areas will also help in getting more subscribers, the department said. The traffic may also increase significantly with less service areas.

When a mobile subscriber moves from his designated service area to a different one, the subscriber is charged roaming fees on incoming and outgoing calls, as well as messages on the same and different networks. In simple terms, roaming means the mobile is connected to the device without any loss in the connection across service areas.

“This (merger of service areas) will definitely benefit the mobile subscribers monetarily. It will also reduce the roaming charges (if there are only certain service areas), which till now haven’t reached the lowest level compared to the current call rates such as one paisa for one second,” a telecom expert said.

DoT is working on a strategy plan for the next five years with regard to the developments in the sector. The note also said there should be clear guidelines governing the renewal of UAS licences, which may enable licensees to take business decisions. Currently, there is no policy for renewal of a licence, it said.

It is also planning to rationalise the licence fee for service providers and linking the timing for payment of spectrum charges with the licence fee. At present, the fee is charged quarterly, whereas the spectrum charges are charged on a quarterly advance basis.