It is clear that axis of (evil) Bharti Airtel, Vodafone & Idea Cellular is pushing hard Govt & DoT to make the 3G roaming legal as it is a part of bigger heist planned by them. Currently they not only offer 3G services to roaming customers in non-3G circles, they also offers commercial 3G services to home users in non-3G circles with this ICR agreement.
It is nothing other than 4G roll out which sparked the whole thing, on 4G-LTE turf only Mukesh Ambani owned Infotel Broadband has pan India 4G BWA spectrum, while Airtel has only 4 circles for 4G roll out, Vodafone & Idea Cellular do not own a single one.
If 3G roaming via ICRA in non-3G circles is made legal, they will join hands with other 4G-BWA players (Aircel, Tikona, Qualcomm, and Augere) to offer nationwide 4G services without paying single penny.
Our Govt is as usual late to understand the situation! But late but not least, DoT asks them to stop ICRA within 24 hours, while accused operators are still trying to prove that they are doing within limits. I personally feel they should be heavily fined for this and yearly payment is to be made to continue the roaming pact.
Apart from these legal questions, but we have few questions being asked to these operators?
What would be the compensation to the customer who has recharge with the higher denomination who has spent on the 3G packs? Will they be refunding the amount to the customers as 3G packs are a huge investment for the customers?
a) For operator like Idea and Vodafone who have recently launched the 3G handsets and customers spending on the same?
b) What’s the benefit of using a 3G handset on 2G network with the low speed?Is customer benefited from it?
c) Recently Idea launched the 3G handset with bundled offer? What will happen to the Bundled offer?
d) Vodafone also launched the 3G handset after the Idea launch. Is customers benefited from this bundled offer after the 3G termination?
In this whole situation customer is the one is who is into loss. Need answers from the operators to justify the customers pain from this.
Our Take: If 3G services are cancelled, customers should be given the voice calls/GPRS/SMS benefits worth for the same amount what he has spent on the 3G packs/recharge/handset. All the options given should be for a longer validity.
How should now operator compensate its customer do share your views and inputs .
