Brief Introduction About Roaming Agreement
Legal roaming is a business aspect. A stipulated roaming agreement helps obtain details on the roaming partners and billing of the services. Generally, the GSM association outlines the content and scope of the agreement.
What Is the Roaming Agreement?
This agreement is made to get the subscription for registration on to a visited network. The agreement has to be made between home and visited network operators. This agreement is taken by home and visited networks.
What Is the Purpose of a Roaming Agreement?
The main purpose of the agreement is to reduce the price of roaming services in the communication networks in a public mobile phone.
Contents of a Roaming Agreement
The following are some of the contents of an agreement;
- Name and address of the parties involved
- Date of execution of the agreement
- Duration of the agreement
- Details of the terms and conditions as specified by the management
- Methods of termination
- Terms and conditions in case of breach of agreement
- Remedies and penalties available in case of breach of agreement
- Sharing of network frequency
- Sharing of revenue from the network
- Total bandwidth allotted for the purpose
- Number of users permitted on the network
- The specificity of services provided in the roaming network
- Representations and warranties
- Positive and negative covenants
- Governing laws
- The jurisdiction in case of a breach
[ Also Read: Subscription Agreement ]
How to Draft a Roaming Agreement?
While drafting this agreement;
- Mention the name and address of the parties involved i.e., company and executive employee
- Mention the date of execution of the agreement
- Mention the duration of the agreement
- Mention the details of the terms and conditions as specified by the management
- Mention the methods of termination
- Mention the terms and conditions in case of breach of agreement
- Mention the remedies and penalties available in case of breach of agreement
- Mention the extent of services provided by the operators
- Mention the jurisdiction of conflict resolution
- What events constitute a breach of contract
The negotiation strategy in such types of agreements depends on the scope of the services of the home and the visited network provider. As explained earlier, the GSM association outlines the content and scope of the agreement. Thus, the chances of negotiation are very rare in a case as such.
Benefits of a Roaming Agreement
The agreement helps to maintain the authentication of the legal aspect, billing of the subscribers, authorization, etc., and the. Apart from this, it focuses on safety standards, including the procedure of “location update” and financial security.
What Happens in Case of Violation?
In case of violation of the agreement, both parties can sue each other and claim for damages in the court of law, whether it may be the home network provider or visited network provider. The conflict resolution also depends on the jurisdiction that the parties have agreed. Arbitration and restitution are some of the easiest ways of resolving conflicts. Given the intangible nature of the services, the users also might suffer which means the injured party will have to pay penalties to the telecom regulatory authorities.
To sum up, a roaming agreement is a very common form of agreement these days and is required for a good and effective communication network.
[ Also Read: Telecommuting Agreement ]
Sample for Strategic roaming agreement
A sample of the agreement can be downloaded from below.
