India to ban roaming pacts on 3G services

India’s government is set to forbid mobile operators from using roaming pacts for third generation services, bringing fresh uncertainty into the nation’s struggling $32bn telecoms market.

India’s three biggest telecoms companies by revenues – Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, and Idea Cellular – use these roaming agreements to provide 3G services in areas where they do not own a telecoms license. A senior Indian telecoms official told reporters in New Delhi that these companies would shortly be issued with notices forbidding these pacts with immediate effect, according to the Press Trust of India. Rajan Mathews, director-general of the Cellular Operators Association of India, criticized the move, saying that that the right to strike such roaming agreements “is something that we will very aggressively defend.”