TRAI recommendation on free roaming in 10-15 days

"On national roaming, the consultation has been completed, the authority is in the process of formulating its final rules before it takes a decision in 10-15 days," TRAI Chairman Rahul Khullar told PTI.

Industry sources said national roaming is proposed to be done through special tariff vouchers which is not exactly free, but it could bring roaming prices down as a first step.

National Telecom Policy, 2012 aims to abolish roaming charges and allow mobile phone subscribers to use the same number across the country without having to pay extra charges for services once they are outside their telecom circle.

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal had said that the government would try to start national free roaming for customers before October this year.

As per an Ernst and Young estimate, removing of roaming charges would cause annualised loss in the range of Rs.12,500 crore to Rs.15,000 crore to the telecom players.

In December last year, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had floated a pre-consultation paper seeking inputs from stakeholders on tariff for national roaming services.

At present, telecom operators have to pay various charges like termination charge, interconnect charges, for completing call of their customers on to other networks which get added to the final cost of the call for the customer when they are out of their circles.