<div>After discussing it for months, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has stayed away from announcing free national roaming. It has announced a cut in national roaming fees though. That should provide cheaper connectivity to millions of subscribers while also providing relief to operators who had been worried that free roaming would dent their top line by approximately 10 per cent.<br /><br />It is not that operators cannot offer free national roaming. Trai has stated that operators can offer plans for roaming subscribers to opt for partially free roaming, or full free roaming for a fee starting July 1. So Special Tariff Vouchers which were earlier limited to within a circle would be permitted for roaming tariffs. That will enable service providers to customise tariffs for roaming subscribers.<br /><br />Even without paying a fee, roaming will become cheaper for millions of mobile telecom service users. Under the new tariffs, mobile-telephone users will pay Re 1 per minute for making a call, and Rs 1.5 per minute for receiving calls outside their telecom circle. Till now, subscribers were charged Rs 1.40 per minute for making calls, and Rs 2.40 per minute for receiving calls.<br /><br />Roaming charges are unique to India. Unlike other countries, India is divided across 22 telecom service areas (largely along state boundaries). Mobile service users of one service area have to pay additional charges for making or receiving calls and text messages, outside their home service area. Goldman Sachs terms the decision as balanced since it achieves the government objective of allowing free national roaming and does not materially impact telecom operator revenues. <br /><br />anupjayaram (at) gmail.com <br />anup(dot)jayaram(at)abp9dot)in<br />9at)anupjayaram <br /><br /> </div>
