The Hindu Business Line : Reliance starts full roaming under new regime

RELIANCE Infocomm has started offering full roaming to its limited mobility (WLL) subscribers in most of its circles across the country marking the beginning of the unified access service licence regime.

The company has become the first basic operator to put into operation its new licence, which has been introduced by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) despite opposition from the private cellular operators.

DoT has moved with unusual speed to allow WLL service providers to offer full mobility. An analysis of DoT's track record over the past four years shows that officials at Sanchar Bhavan have been burning the midnight oil to ensure a speedy transition to the new licence regime.

The Department has taken 15 days to come out with detailed guidelines on the unified licence regime after it received the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). As against this, most of the previous decisions of the Department concerning key telecom sectors have taken anywhere between 64 and 229 days, barring two exceptions.

While detailed guidelines were issued on competition in national long distance sector 229 days after receiving the TRAI recommendations, a decision on universal service obligation (USO) took 174 days, basic services took 147 days, fourth cellular operators took 75 days and international long distance services, 64 days.

Although guidelines on Internet telephony were issued faster (only 30 days after the TRAI's recommendations), it was more to do with meeting a set deadline. International long distance operations were to be opened up for competition on April 1 2002, and therefore, soon after the TRAI gave its recommendations on February 20, 2002, the Department was forced to issue its guidelines on the issue before that.

Another decision of the Government took an almost equal time period as the unified licences close to three years ago. While the TRAI gave its green signal for allowing basic operators to offer limited mobility (WLL) services on January 8, 2001, the detailed guidelines were issued exactly 17 days later.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Pension funds: Private sector to play key role
Govt settles for one public sector entity

Telecom majors may oppose single licence for long-distance

Reliance starts full roaming under new regime

Good crop brings smiles back to M.P. farmers

Market cap surges past boom period high