On December 22 Telecom Ministry has asked top telecom operators like Bharti, Vodafone, Idea service providers to abondon their 3G roaming agreements and is also planning to set penalty on them.Its all because of operators for disobeying licence norms.As this decision came After the view of telecom regulator Trai, Law Ministry and DoT in violation of the telecom licences.

To offer better 3G mobile services top operators like Bharti, Vodafone and Idea had entered into agreement with one another in circles where they could not succeed in getting spectrum in the auction held last year.

Telecom Secretary R Chandrasekhar said, The decision has been taken that this (3G roaming pacts) is in violation of terms and conditions of the licence.And notices will be issuing to operators to stop their service with immediate effect. But on penalty, no decision has been taken yet.

The issue pertains to the agreement among major service providers, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular, for providing 3G roaming network on a pan-India basis.

Other service providers like Tata Teleservices and Aircel had also entered into similar agreements to offer services in six circles. However, they have already discontinued the arrangement.

The Department of Telecom had sought a legal opinion on this matter and the Law Ministry had supported the DoT's view.

Due to roaming agreement in 3G services among the telecom companies Department of Telecom quotted that this would lead to a significant loss of revenue to the government.