Guidelines on unification of licences issued

The government on Tuesday issued guidelines for single licence for basic and cellular services, paving the way for basic operators like Reli...

The government on Tuesday issued guidelines for single licence for basic and cellular services, paving the way for basic operators like Reliance Infocomm to offer full mobility on its WLL phones. The new guidelines mean that existing telecom operators operating WLL services will have the option of paying an extra entry fee to offer fully mobile services based on any technology — GSM or WLL.

However, the government has left the door open for companies which do not want to migrate to the new regime to continue with their old licences. What is surprising is the speed at which the government has cleared the entire policy of unified licensing. On October 27, the TRAI first mooted its recommendations for such a licence. The Group of Ministers on Telecom considered these proposals two days later on October 30, and approved it. The very next day the Cabinet met to clear the policy. Less than 10 days later, the Department of Telecommunications has issued the new guidelines.

	New Guidelines

			• WLL operators free to have full mobility after paying extra entry fee. • Cellphone companies not to pay extra fee to move to unified licences. Story continues below this ad • Operators to get three days to decide to move to new licence — Operators to have choice for all-India licence or area specific licences.

As per the calculation provided in final guidelines, Reliance would have to shell out Rs 1,096.01 crore for migration to new regime besides a penalty. The TRAI had recommended a penalty of Rs 485 crore on Reliance for offering roaming-like services on its WLL phones.

Tatas are expected to cough up around Rs 500 crore for the circles for which they have licences if they want to move to a unified licensing regime.

With this the government has also issued an addendum to the existing National Telecom Policy ’99 and decided that there will be two additional categories of licences for telecom services. One is for unified access (basic and cellular) services permitting players to provide basic or cellular service using any technology in a defined service area and another for unified licence for telecom services permitting service providers to offer all telecom or telegraph services covering various geographical areas across India using any technology, an official release said.

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With the final guidelines in place, the payment of additional entry fee and penal interest, if any, would have to be made upfront along with the request for migration to the new unified access services licence regime. On receipt of the request along with the requisite payments, the DoT will carry out actual calculations and will intimate the difference of amount, if any, to the concerned applicant or telecom company, which shall have to be paid within three working days from the date of receipt of demand.

Failing a response by the applicant, the application would be rejected and the amounts paid by the prospective licencee would be refunded within a period of 15 days, the guidelines said. The DoT clarified that no interest shall be paid by DoT for the amounts deposited for migration to unified access service licence.

The licence fee, service area, roll out obligations and performance bank guarantee under the unified access service licence would be same as for the existing cellular service providers.