In a circular, the Department of Telecommunications / DoT has permitted mobile operators (both existing operators and license holders) in India, to provide intra service area (intra circle) roaming facility based on mutual commercial agreements amongst each other.
Now why would one need Intra Circle Roaming ?
Companies like Spice Mobile in Karnataka hardly have service areas in the interiors and to serve customers of Spice, Intra circle service is essential at times of emergency. [When you are in Home circle, you cannot manually choose a different network / service provider, but from now on, if Wireless operators wish, their customers can]
Intra circle roaming is now permitted but not mandatory. So, the existing operators may choose not to provide the facility to the new entrants or vice versa. DoT has suggested that TRAI can prescribe tariffs for the intra circle roaming arrangements. Presently, for inter circle roaming, TRAI imposes tariff ceilings and not an absolute charge / rentals.
Upcoming service providers can go for an arrangement with spectrum abundant Telcos for Intra circle sharing until they roll out their own services. However, TRAI’s prescription for tariff on intra circle roaming becomes critical in this case.