The Union Cabinet on Friday accepted the recommendations of the Group of Minister (GoM) on telecom to unify the licenses of basic and cellular telecom services thus paving the way for WLL operators like Reliance to offer full mobility services.Communication & IT minister Arun Shourie said after the meeting that the Cabinet approved unified license regime. He, however, said that no decision was taken on enhancing foreign investment limit in telecom sector to 74 per cent from 49 per cent not. After unification, the requirement of additional spectrum for new services would be done on payment as per the guidelines from TRAI. As per TRAI’s recommendations, accepted by the group of minister, WLL operators wanting to migrate to the unified regime would be required to pay the difference of the entry fee for the fourth cellular operator and the entry fee already paid by them. Reliance Infocomm would be required to pay Rs 1,581 crore for migrating to a unified regime which includes Rs 1,096 crore towards migration fee and Rs 485 crore as penalty.Cellular operators have already moved the Supreme Court asking it to implement the TDSAT’s order to limit the range of WLL mobile services as per the TDSAT’s order.
