No luck for 3G roaming as DoT calls it illegal

Those who hope to roam around the country with their 3G application will be disappointed with the government's latest ruling, which bars spectrum sharing between service providers.

The department of telecommunications (DoT), which is directly under the central telecom ministry, today said that service providers have ''not come with clean hands'' and have ''suppressed material documents'' to the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal.

In an affidavit to TDSAT, the DoT has requested the tribunal to dismiss the petition of telecom operators challenging the government directive to stop 3G roaming immediately.

Backed by similar observations made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Kapil Sibal, the communications and information technology minister, has asked the telecom secretary to send notices to all 3G operators who have entered into such 'illegal' roaming agreements.

Furthermore, DoT is likely to impose penalty on these operators for violating 3G 'cellular mobile telecom service licence rules.

The DoT further submitted in its affidavit before TDSAT that ''In spite of the directions by this tribunal, the petitioners (operators) have not submitted the intra-circle roaming agreements entered into with various telecom service providers. The present petition is liable to be dismissed on this ground alone.''

On 23 December, DoT had issued notices to telecom companies saying their 3G roaming pacts were illegal and should be stopped immediately.