TRAI on Monday said a blanket waiver of mobile roaming charges is not feasible. The telecom regulator said such a move will hit operators by Rs 2,200 crore, and, in turn, force them to increase tariffs.
This is contrary to the stand taken by Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal, who had earlier announced that all roaming charges would be waived. This would have made incoming calls free even while roaming.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has instead made it mandatory for mobile operators to launch special vouchers for roaming users. Such vouchers are already in the market. For example, Aircel had launched a ‘One nation, one rate’ plan that offers outgoing calls at 1 paisa per second and free incoming while roaming. But subscribers will have to pay an upfront fee of Rs 59 to use this plan. The regulator brought down the ceiling tariff for roaming service by up to 57 per cent. For example, operators could charge a maximum of Rs 1.75 per minute for incoming calls but can now collect 75 paise per minute. But this will not have any major impact on consumers as most operators are already offering cheaper tariffs.
This is good news for telecom companies as this removes any concern around losing revenue from waiving roaming charges. “As telcos would be able to charge a “one-time” fee to subscribe to special tariff vouchers, they should be able to partially offset any negative impact from incoming roaming rate cut,” said an analyst report from Goldman Sachs.