Vodafone, Airtel and Idea join efforts to provide seamless 3G services to customers

We had been growing tired of hearing about the poor 3G services and the exorbitant 3G rates being charged. Not any more. India's three premier mobile operates have now joined forces to bring seamless pan-India 3G services to their customers at a low cost.

According to the Intra Circle Roaming Agreements  (ICRA), Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone can now offer 3G mobile and data services in telecom circles even where they don't have 3G spectrum and licenses. In a statement released by Vodafone the company stated, "Vodafone has entered into a bilateral roaming agreement, both inter and intra circle, with Idea and Airtel to provide 3G services to our customers in the circles where we have not built our own 3G network, in order to bring a pan-India experience of 3G services to our customers."

According to TelecomTalk, "Vodafone using Idea will be providing 3G services to its customers in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh (West) telecom circles." Airtel will now be piggybacking on Idea's 3G network via ICRA in Gujarat, while Idea using Vodafone’s 3G network will be offering services to its customers in New Delhi and Kolkata. The idea behind this pact is not only to make 3G services available at a big scale but also reduce costs for subscribers.

The partnership details in terms of the revenue sharing model between the three operators has not been divulged so far.

Vodafone at present owns  3G spectrum licence in 10 circles namely  Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (east region) and West Bengal while Idea Cellular has 3G licenses for Maharashtra and  Goa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, UP (East) UP (West), Punjab, Haryana and Kerala while Bharti Airtel owns 3G licenses for Delhi, Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (west region), West Bengal, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, the North East, and Jammu and Kashmir.