Officials from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) have said that the issue of the roaming deals signed amongst various operators will be resolved when the new telecom policy is implemented in early 2012.
The new policy will introduce a pan-India mobile permit, eliminating the existing system of having 22 individual region-specific permits. Also, it is expected that the concept of roaming will be phased out if operators migrate to the new regime.
Prior to this, the Ministry of Law and Justice had endorsed the views put forward by several sections of DoT, as well as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), which had said that the 3G roaming deals inked between operators violated licence rules.
Also, DoT plans to ask operators to terminate the roaming agreements. Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular have defended these pacts and have asked the Prime Minister to intervene and resolve the issue.
