Question : ROAMING CHARGES FOR MOBILE SUBSCRIBERS

THE MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD)

(a) After a comprehensive consultation process, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued Telecommunication Tariff (55th Amendment) Order, 2013 dated 17.06.2013, which came into effect from 01.07.2013. This amendment brought about the following changes in the tariff regime for national roaming service:

(i) The ceiling tariffs for national roaming service have been reduced. The prescribed ceiling are indicated in the table given below :

 Item	Ceiling tariff Outgoing local voice call	Re.1.00 per minute Outgoing long distance (inter-circle) voice call	Rs.1.50 per minute Incoming voice call	Re.0.75 per minute Outgoing local SMS	Re.1.00 per SMS Outgoing long distance (inter-circle) SMS	Rs.1.50 per SMS 

(ii) Special Tariff Vouchers (STVs) and Combo Vouchers (CVs) with benefits of national roaming have been allowed to provide flexibility and convenience to the consumers.

(iii) The service providers have been mandated to offer special tariff plans for roaming (Roaming Tariff plan(RTP) and Roaming Tariff plan-Free(RTP-FR)). The subscribers can avail partially free roaming, or fully free roaming in lieu of payment of fixed charges, by subscribing to RTP and RTP-FR respectively.

All mobile service providers are offering tariff for national roaming service within the prescribed ceilings. There are options made available to subscribers where lower national roaming rates are available depending upon the plan, STVs and CVs the subscriber chooses. The charges vary across different service providers and also across different plans, STVs and CVs of a service provider.

(b )& (c) Presently there is no proposal before the Government to discontinue the roaming charges for the mobile subscribers.

(d) & (e) As per the current tariff framework in vogue, tariff for mobile services (including STD tariff) is under forbearance except for national roaming services. The operators have flexibility to offer different tariff packages targeted at different customer user groups, subject to the condition that these tariffs have to be consistent with the regulatory principles of non-discrimination, non-predation etc.

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