The Bill 4302/08, proposed by Deputy Mário Heringer (PDT-MG) is being processed at the Chamber, and obliges mobile telephone services companies to offer interstate roaming services, independently from a previous agreement on the service among them. “Because they are not obliged to close agreements, those companies harm consumers rights, since the provided service does not offer an effective coverage”, justifies its author.

The roaming service allows the user to obtain coverage in areas outside of the geographic location in which the cell phone is located. In order to use a cell phone in roaming, it is necessary that the company, or another one with which it has an agreement on services, owns technology that is compatible to the cell phone in use.

A cell phone with GSM technology, for instance, will only produce roaming in GSM networks. Therefore an availability agreement among different operators with the same technology is necessary.

In order to solve that problem, the bill also determines that the National Telecommunication Agency (Anatel), in addition to inspecting the complying with roaming calls, regulates technical solutions to match different technologies.

Procedure
The bill, which is being processed in conclusive character, will be reviewed by the Committees on Science and Technology, Communication and Computer Sciences; and on the Constitution and Justice and Citizenship.

Report - Malena Rehbein
Editing - Pierre Triboli
Translation - Positive Idiomas Ltda