About six crore cellular phone users in the Andhra Pradesh Telecom Circle can heave a sigh of relief as after June 2, when Telangana becomes the 29 State of India, they need not pay roaming tariff.
While vehicle numbers, company and commercial tax registration numbers will change, mobile users need not worry about coughing up extra money for being on roaming. Whether it is a subscriber in Adilabad visiting Anantapur, Chittoor or Srikakulam, or the other way round, it will only be local calls.
BSNL-AP Circle General Manager V. Srinivasan said that roaming comes into effect only when a subscriber goes out of what is defined as the Licence Service Area (LSA) and not the State, geographically-speaking.
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And again, he said it depends on the period for which the spectrum was auctioned.
Circle Business Head-Mobility (CBH) of Tata Docomo Abhijit Kishore said it was the license that mattered and that there would be no difference in the perspective of handling the company’s approximately 65.21 lakh subscribers.
CBH of Vodafone, that handles 62.58 lakh connections, Mandeep Bhatia reeled out examples of how Goa and Maharashtra are two States, but have one telecom circle, as are Chhattisgarh (Madhya Pradesh) and Jharkhand (Bihar). On the other hand, Chennai and Tamil Nadu are two circles, like Kolkata and West Bengal, Mumbai and Maharashtra.
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Regional Business Head of Aircel, Hamir Bakshi, said they would strictly go by the definition of a circle, according to the Department of Telecommunication and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
In some places, he explained, the whole of a State or a metro was one circle, while in others two States were one circle.