Telecom minister Kapil Sibal today said that mobile phone consumers will get Free National Roaming Facility across India by October 2013 as announced in National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2012.
However Kapil Sibal could not specify the exact dates for the launch of Free National Roaming Service in India, but said that "FREE Roaming will certainly be in place by the month of October, 2013". With this service, the roaming charges on Incoming calls are waived and mobile users in all telecom circles will be able to get FREE incoming calls while traveling to any other circles across India.
India's National Telecom Policy 2012 was approved by the Central Government in May 2012 and under the policy, the Government had said that national roaming would be made free with the introduction of concept of "One Nation, One License" which was expected in March 2013.
However all mobile service providers (except Reliance Mobile) including leading operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular had been opposing Free roaming in the consultation process by Telecom regulator TRAI and said that it will hit their margins badly and outgoing call rates may be increased.
