Using 3G on Vodafone, Airtel or Idea! It may not last long
Gujaratglobal News Network, Ahmedabad
Important news for users of 3G services of Vodafone India, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular. The department of telecommunications (DoT) has deemed the bilateral 3G roaming agreements among these firms as illegal.
The bilateral 3G roaming agreements refer to agreements among Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular through which they could provide high speed 3G services to their customers even in circles where they didn’t get spectrum licence in the 2010 auction.
In 2010, bidding was held for 3G spectrum allocation of various circles. These companies had bid and won 3G spectrum licences in various, but not all circles. Then in July 2011 Vodafone India, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular announced the signing of roaming agreements among them which would enable their subscribers to have access to 3G services even in the circles where they did not win the spectrum.
This issue was raised with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) by state run BSNL and other telecos. After looking into the matter, TRAI had advised the DoT to declare these agreements as illegal. This view was also supported by various wings of DoT such as the legal and finance wing. The DoT has observed that these internal agreements between the telecos would lead to very high losses of revenue to the government.
These telecos have argued that their agreements are legal, as per the June 2008 amendment to the telecom rules, which allows the operators to offer services using other operator’s network till the time they could set up their own.
It is noteworthy, that this amendment was made to allow the new operators, who had got licences in 2008 to start their services as soon as possible.
The DoT is also considering the prospect of imposing a penalty on these operators ,sources have told.
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