Vodafone Essar and Bharti airtel have informed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that the 3G roaming agreement between various players was legal and approved by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) before the 3G auctions were held.
In a letter to TRAI, Vodafone has said that the concerns around the roaming agreements were unfounded. ?In February 2010, when the government was finalising the modalities and framework for the 3G spectrum auction and its subsequent use, the industry had specifically asked DoT whether intra-circle roaming for offering services to customers would also be applicable, in case certain operators are not able to acquire spectrum in all circles. In response to this query DoT had clearly stated that the roaming policy is applicable to the licences and not to specific spectrum bands. Hence, roaming will be permitted,? the letter said.
The roaming agreements inked by operators including airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular have come under DoT and TRAI?s scanner. In fact, DoT has also asked Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited to defer its plans of inking a roaming deal with private players for 3G mobile services.
DoT wants MTNL to wait until the government decides whether such deals are permitted under licence conditions. While mobile licences allow operators to ink roaming agreements, TRAI and DoT are concerned that in the case of 3G, service operators have gone a step ahead and are selling connections in all circles, including areas where they do not have spectrum. Earlier, roaming agreements for 2G services were primarily done to cater to subscribers who travelled from one circle to another. However, for 3G services, operators have inked agreements, whereby connections are being sold in the same circle.
DoT has questioned whether such an arrangement is tantamount to spectrum sharing, which is not permitted under the licence conditions. Operators, however, argue that the arrangement was legal as DoT had clarified that roaming agreements will be allowed for 3G services.
