Minister meets telephony czars on roaming rate

Union Communications and IT Minister A Raja has expressed his interest in bringing down national roaming rates to zero, further cutting international roaming rates and favouring technology neutrality in the country. The minister had expressed these interests in his separate meetings with the chiefs of leading telecom companies in the country.

During the week, the minister had met Tata Teleservices chairman Ratan N Tata, Bharti Airtel chairman and managing Sunil Bharti Mittal and Reliance Communications' Anil Ambani, according to sources in the ministry.

The minister said that he was looking at the possibilities of reducing national roaming rates to zero. Former communications and IT minister Dayanidhi Maran had promised that roaming charges would be waived on June 3, coinciding with the birthday of his grand uncle and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.

The new minister stated that discussion were still on in this regard. The industry was split on this move, with some players claiming that this will hurt the industry, while others welcoming the move. At present, roaming charges generate around Rs 4,000 crore for the operators.

The spokespersons of Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications confirmed that both the companies' chiefs had met the minister separately. Even though Reliance executives declined to comment on the agenda of the meetings, Tata spokesperson said that the discussion revolved around spectrum allocation and 3G issues. He, however, did not elaborate.

Raja was also believed to have stated that the ministry would look into reducing international roaming rates, which is as high as Rs 60 per minute for certain countries like Thailand and Malaysia. He also said that he will look at encouraging technology neutrality, with an operator been given permission to provide services under both the existing technologies "� CDMA and GSM.

The ministry will also look at encouraging emerging technologies like WiMAx and WCDMA that would help operators to spectrum efficient and rollout advanced value added services (VAS) in the country.