Roaming charges could be history by October, 2013, says Kapil Sibal

Mobile phone users are likely to see their charges drop as they are set to get free roaming facility across India. This will be by October 2013 in line with the National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2012. Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology said. Sibal was in Chandigarh as a chief guest at a prize giving function of MCM DAV College for Women.

The minister said he could not specify the exact dates, but did say said that you can write "free roaming will certainly be in place by the month of October, 2013".

Once the roaming charges are waived, mobile users will be able to get incoming calls free of charge and outgoing calls at local rates while travelling anywhere in the country. For record, the National Telecom Policy was approved by the Union Cabinet in May 2012 and under the policy, the government had said that roaming within the country would be made free with the introduction of concept of "one nation, one rate." As per the policy, mobile users will enjoy free roaming and will keep their phone numbers across the country under the new mobile number portability proposal. .

Once free roaming is in place, the difference between local and STD calls would no longer be there and it would surely appeal to the masses since those travelling will not have to worry about roaming charges.

However, telecom companies had been opposing free roaming on the plea that it will hit their margins badly. Roaming charges account for roughly 10 percent of the revenues. Other reasons being cited are security threat, undesirable competition and end of the concept of STD.

Now with the Kapil Sibal making a categorical statement, roaming charges would become a thing of past.

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