Cabinet approved the New Telecom Policy 2012 which seeks to do away with Roaming Charges

The Union cabinet on 31 May 2012 in a meeting presided over by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved a new telecom policy 2012 which seeks to do away with roaming charges across the country. The new policy called National Telecom Policy-2012 will replace more than a decade old legislation.  The new Telecom Policy also simplifies the licencing policy. The new policy also seeks to provide a predictable and stable policy regime for a period of nearly 10 years.

The policy aims at providing secure, reliable, affordable and high quality converged telecommunication services anytime, anywhere for an accelerated inclusive socio-economic development. The policy emphasized on the multiplier effect and transformational impact of such services on the overall economy. Detailed guidelines, as may be considered appropriate are to be introduced from t from time to time for operational purposes.

National Telecom Policy is expected to enable smooth implementation of the policies for providing an efficient telecommunication infrastructure taking into account the primary objective of maximising public good by empowering the people of India. Also the policy will enable taking of facilitatory measures to encourage existing service providers to rapidly migrate to the new regime in a uniformly liberalised environment with a level playing field.

New Telecom Policy-2012 Highlights
• Increase rural teledensity from the current level of around 39 to 70 by the year 2017 and 100 by the year 2020
• Repositioning of Mobile phone as an instrument of empowerment
• Broadband -"'Broadband For All" at a minimum download speed of 2 Mbps
• Domestic Manufacturing - Making India a global hub

The policy also provides for national number portability However in this respect too no timeline was provided. The New Telecom Policy also mentioned that cloud computing, next generation networks, IPV6 and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to be thrust.

The union cabinet also approved introduction of unified licence and authorised the Department of Telecommunications to finalise the new unified licensing regime with the approval of minister of communications and IT.