State-run telecommunications company Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Ltd., or MTNL, will soon be launching free roaming services for its customers, which would allow users to receive calls with no extra charges while travelling throughout the country.
MTNL offers telecommunications services in Mumbai and Delhi, and currently, its customers have to pay up for roaming charges when answering incoming calls while outside these territories.
While there is no definite date yet on when the free roaming scheme will be launched, MTNL Managing Director and Chairman NK Yadav said that the offer will soon be announced by the company, with the company still finalizing the date.
The near implementation of free roaming services for MTNL services was confirmed by Ravi Shankar Prasad, India's Telecom Minister.
Under the National Telecom Policy of 2012, the Indian government has set the goal of gradually achieving free roaming for the country.
In addition to the planned free roaming services, MTNL has increased the minimum broadband connection speed to 2 Mbps as an improved service to its customers. The telecommunications firm has also been offering free broadband Internet connections for a full month to its landline subscribers.
India has been the subject of several news reports regarding telecommunications recently. A report last month revealed that Facebook is bringing Free Basics, the initiative formerly known as Internet.org, back to the country.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is looking to connect all the people of the world through the Internet, and has decided to take Free Basics to the second most populous country on the planet. Internet.org was first launched in India in February, but the initiative was not met well back then.
"To continue connecting the world, we have to connect India. More than a billion people in India don't have access to the Internet," Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post.
Two months ago, another report revealed that Google is bringing Internet access to 400 train stations around India, as the company also looks to address the connectivity issues that Zuckerberg said impacting over a billion citizens of the country.
Google promises that the Internet access through the Wi-Fi hotspots on the train stations will be able to stream HD videos, which would be much faster compared to what most people in India would be used to.
