3G roaming agreements is illegal in the country, saying department of telecommunication . In a move that hurt mobile operators providing 3G services, department of telecommunication (DOT) has asked these operators to withdraw their roaming agreements which were the violation of license norms.
Already similar observations are made by telecom regulatory authority of India and the law ministry, telecommunications and IT minister Kapil Sibel has asked telecom secretary R Chandrasekharan to send notices to impose penalty on these operators for violating 3G license norms.
“The decision has been taken that this (3G roaming pacts) is in violation of terms and conditions of the license. The government will be issuing notices asking them (operators) to stop their service with immediate effect. But on penalty, no decision has been taken yet,” telecom secretary R Chandrasekhar said.
In the 3G spectrum auction held earlier this year, where the government fetched over Rs 67700 core , no private operator managed to bag pan India license , thus barring them from offering nation wide services , Reliance communication, Bharti Airtel and Aircel bagged the highest number 13 circles in the 3G auction.
Subsequently Airtel ,Vodafone and Idea entered into a roaming agreement to use each other networks for providing pan-India 3G coverage. Similar agreements were also entered between Tata and Aircel which they later terminated. After receiving complaints ,the DOT look into the matter and took legal opinion. Now the DOT will issue notices to these firms to terminate their contracts with immediate effect or face action.