In a move that would hurt mobile operators providing 3G services, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked these operators to terminate their roaming agreements, which were in violation of licence norms.
Backed by similar observations made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and the Law Ministry, Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal has asked Telecom Secretary R. Chandrasekhar to send notices to all 3G operators, who have entered into such ‘illegal' roaming agreements. The DoT is also likely to impose penalty on these operators for violating 3G licence norms.
In the 3G spectrum auction held earlier this year, where the government fetched over Rs.67,700 crore, no private operator managed to bag pan-India licence, thus barring them from offering nationwide services. Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel and Aircel bagged the highest number 13 circles in the 3G auction.
Subsequently, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular entered into a roaming agreement to use each others' networks for providing pan-India 3G coverage. Similar agreements were also entered into by Tata Teleservices and Aircel, which they later terminated. After receiving complaints, the DoT looked into the matter and also took legal opinion. Now, the DoT will issue notices to these firm to terminate their contracts with immediate effect or face action.
On the other hand, the three operators — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular — have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding refund of spectrum auction payments if such 3G roaming is disallowed.
“In the event that 3G ICR [intra-circle roaming] is now deemed impermissible, then, it would be a clear breach of our contract and the pre-auction confirmation given by the government. In that eventuality, we request that our spectrum auction payments be refunded to us with interest along with compensation for all the capital investments made by us,” Bharti Enterprises Chairman and Group CEO Sunil Mittal, Aditya Birla Group (Idea Cellular) Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla and London-based Vodafone Group Plc Group Chief Executive Vittorio Colao said in a letter written to Dr. Singh a few weeks ago.
Keywords: 3G services, 3G pan India access, telecos roaming pact, TRAI
The way the three Telecom bigwigs (Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular) threaten the PM is unethical. The operators are trying to deceive the Govt by ICR. It is very much clear from the DOT report that ICR was not the part of the licencing agreement. DOT is doing the right job and friends who comment kindly go through the licence agreement and look at the way these corporate honchos violated them. 2G was a big mess up and TRAI and DOT is very careful abt the 3G that it doesnt come up with anyother big controversy. Lets see.
I think the Govt departments had gone mad. This is sheer abuse of power and I do not think any one in any sanity will ever buy this idea or decision.
If the written contract doesn't mention allowing roaming then private operators must pay the fine and should be prevented. All corporates bid and enter into deals only after evaluating the costs and rewards and if they bid for some circles and accepted at that time not getting all-india license it means that they knew that they would make a profit without any roaming, a much bigger profit then investment (obvious in telecom), therefore they have no excuse but to pay the fine and be content with their respective circles.
Dear Friends, I saw most of your comments and would like to clear a few points over here. Firstly the problem is 3G ICR [intra-circle roaming], not inter circle roaming ie. a mobile phone from chennai will work just fine on 3G by other service providers in delhi. The problem is that these companies are exploiting their licences to give 3G services in the same circle. For example in Mumbai Circle Reliance, Airtel and Vodafone, have won 3g spectrum auction but because of intra-circle roaming agreements between IDEA, Vodafone and Airtel, Idea is also providing 3G services to it's Mumbai Circle Customers on Airtel Network without paying up any fees to the govt. If for eg an Idea customer from GOA visits Mumbai and he gets 3G services its totally fine, but is it right for IDEA to provide 3G services to its local Mumbai Customers without winning licence or paying Govt. Duties
this is a silly decision by the government. on one the DoT, TeleCom Ministry complain about low broadband penetration, on how India is far behind western countries in terms of internet usage, and on the other side they are playing spoil sport to the good being done by private telecom players. I think the government has gone greedy and wants extra moolah to allow 3G roaming. Its the end user that will suffer. This should be challenged in courts by the telecom companies, I am sure all end users will back the move.
Is govt. working for the welfare of the people or not..???
Please make me understand. How can such an agreement be illegal? On one hand we have MVNO's like Virgin and T24 and the government has provision for their operation and suddenly if an operator runs 3G services on the same model, it becomes illegal! I don't see the difference. If you bring in 'the cost factor' for purchasing the spectrum, that shouldn't be a headache for the government because the spectrum was sold and now it is up to the buyer to utilise that spectrum in whichever way they feel is good as a business model within the ambit of the law. Do people even know if what they are doing in their senses are right or wrong or do they need another Lord Krishna to open their eyes?
Whose loss is this?Govt. was not wise enough at the time of granting licences.Now the only who to suffer will be consumers.I wish to Govt to accept their short-sighted mistake.
it's all the language play role ... but case should be monitored & the Govt should be questioned why they can't share.... make it good ...Ultimate decision should go in favour of users by giving no extra roaming cost ....
For those who are concerned about the 'low' spectrum costs, does it ever occur to them that license fee is ultimately going to be paid by them? Even with the sort of 'low' spectrum price, 3G connectivity prices are beyond reach of average consumers. DOT is nuts, and so are the stupid common populace.
So BSNL paid for all-India license and the private operators achieved the same result by paying half of that and forging roaming agreements amongst them.
The government, particularly this Congress led government is morally bankrupt and corrupt to the core. Let us for a moment assume that money is lost by the Government because of the agreements between private operators. The question then arises, what does the Government need all that money for? Our roads and infrastructure is third-class, our country still a third world country and no amount of tax paying will change that. All the tax money fills up coffers of babus and mantris.
Amol, Before you were born 25 yrs ago, in the good old days BSNL used to charge 20Rs a minute (those days 20 Rs was a lot of money) for STD and that to those who were privileged enough to get a telephone at home. I don't think anyone wants to go back to those days. Everywhere in the world Telcos do roaming agreements.
This is not about the end user - 'the indian mobile user', it is more about the Government Bodies playing as per rules. Obviously this decision will be trashed in court, but 2012, like 2010 & 2011 will see a stagnant telecom industry. We will end up as a nation of tablet owners working at 560 Kbps.
The world has changed and India needs to do that too. The telecom revolution is going to be hectic and the Indian Congress regime may be worried about it as it could not do any corruption if private operators are operating at cheap prices.
Is the money made on 2G Scam and commonwealth games insufficient?
These Private operators should be penalized otherwise nobody will obey
rule of the land.
Internet penetration is very important for a developing nation like ours and mobile internet is the best way for 100% internet coverage. It is the consumer who is being affected by these confusions. It is not in the interest of the people. Providing licenses to only a few mobile operators brings unfair advantage to those operators, and does not encourage fair competition according to my opinion. We haven't got reliable 3G coverage yet, even in the metros when the rest of the world is deploying 4G. Can India ever catch up?
If the private telecom operators have violated the rules of the licences they should be
penalized and the process can go through the legal system. Why is the Telecom
group appealing to the Prime Minister, are they looking for special favours for
subverting the law? If they have broken the law they should pay the price.
And they be asked to give all profit they made from this during this
period to government.. fair and simple.. government can use all this
network for BSNL services. Thereby no need of these companies..
The government want to kill the goose which laid the golden egg. They took the licensing fee for each circle and now trying to throw wrench in the wheel. Grow up Dept of Telecom
Indian Telcos make the lowest ARPU owing to 1p and 0.5p a minute calls. DoT have made a hash of spectrum allocation, now it is even more perplexing that they haven't even thought through the basic business model. As the cliche goes, It happens only in India!
In order to serve the customer using mobile services, its important to provide nationwide coverage. Govt has given the rights to use the spectrum, what is illegal if they share the spectrum to ensure customer delight!...In fact such roaming agreements are good for end customer as the service provider can share the infrastructure cost and provide services at cheaper prices.
So what does this mean to the end customer? Why would DoT object to me
using my Chennai cell phone at Delhi? I am willing to pay a hire tariff.
I need the convenience of a cell phone wherever I am. Can someone
explain?
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