Good News for International Roaming Cell Phone Owners

After bringing down tariffs for domestic mobile roaming services, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is now looking to facilitate a reduction in international roaming tariffs for Indian consumers travelling abroad. TRAI has sent feelers to the European Commission to allow Indian mobile users to take benefit of the proposed low roaming rates while travelling within the European continent.

The European Commission has proposed to bring down roaming charges within Europe by up to 60 per cent, which could allow mobile users to take roaming services at about Rs 40 a minute compared to the existing tariff which ranges between Rs 60 and Rs 90 a minute.

While the current EC proposal is only for European mobile users, TRAI has sought to include India in the scheme. In return, Europeans travelling to India would get cheaper roaming tariffs.

In a related move, TRAI has also initiated a discussion with telecom regulators in SAARC countries to introduce a regime on the lines of the European Union wherein mobile users travelling with the SAARC region would get cheaper roaming rates.

However, these initiatives could take time to fructify, as it involves multiple operators and telecom regulators working in different environments. In addition, most cellular operators are opposed to the idea of reducing roaming tariffs, which could delay the implementation of the proposal even if the various regulators were to agree on a common platform.

The EC, for instance, has been debating the new roaming tariffs for Europe since July 2006 with operators, including Vodafone, France Telecom and Orange putting their combined weight against the proposal. Operators argue that roaming is a premium service and, therefore, consumers need to pay higher tariff.

With domestic voice calls becoming cheaper, operators are banking on international roaming along with data services to keep their revenues intact. On the other hand, the telecom regulators could enforce the regulation on the operators just like TRAI had forced mobile services providers to cut domestic roaming rates early this year.