Free roaming only in letter, not spirit, says DoT

Trai Chairman Rahul Khullar had said free roaming was not practical at this moment

The One Nation, Free Roaming plan, proposed in the National Telecom Policy, 2012, is achieved only in letter and not in spirit, the access service wing of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said in an internal communication.

The discussion was initiated after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) announced its new order on roaming rate earlier this week. Chairman Rahul Khullar had said free roaming was not practical at this moment.

In the telecom policy, cleared by the Cabinet last year, the government had proposed to work towards free roaming. But the new order of Trai does not offer relief to customers. Apparently, there is a reduction in the roaming rate ceilings, but the operators seem to be offering lower rate even now, it is communicated.

With Trai’s latest order, telecom companies will have to offer two types of plans to each consumer who roams. Under one, consumers will have to pay a fixed roaming charge and then they will get incoming calls free. Under the second option, consumers will not be charged any fixed amount for roaming, but incoming calls will be charged. In both cases, outgoing calls (both local and long distance calls) will be charged the same as their home circle.

At present, subscribers pay an additional fee for making and receiving calls when they are outside their home service area. There are 22 telecom service areas in the country.

The ceiling tariffs prescribed by Trai in 2007 were Rs 1.40 per minute for outgoing local calls and Rs 2.40 per minute for outgoing long distance calls while on national roaming. The ceilings have been reduced to Rs 1 a minute and Rs 1.50 a minute, respectively. The ceiling for incoming calls, while on roaming, have been reduced from Rs 1.75 a minute to 75 paise a minute.

In the new roaming tariff order, Trai has fixed ceiling of SMS charges very high. Recently, Trai fixed the termination charge for SMS at two paise and the termination charge for voice calls is 20 paise. In its new order, Trai has fixed the ceiling for long distance roaming calls and long distance SMSes at Rs 1.50.

It is stated the regulator has taken into account the prevailing tariff for outgoing calls and the ceiling tariff for incoming calls. Trai has reversed its earlier directive of not levying any type of fixed charge for roaming services, as it has allowed special vouchers and other roaming tariff plans. This might create confusion among consumers.