The Hindu Business Line : TRAI set to finalise unified licence norms in a month

THE Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today said that it would finalise its recommendations on unified licensing regime in about one month.

"We have given various models for a unified regime and the operators and stakeholders have given their opinion. We will analyse this. We are likely to firm up our views on the subject in about a month," the TRAI member, Mr D.P.S. Seth, said after an open house session on the issue here on Wednesday.

During the session, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said all telecom services should be covered under unified licence including fixed and wireless broadband.

"There should be a scheme of class licence for categories of services that are not very competitive, for instance, the paging industry. The registration charge should be a one-time charge covering the cost of processing and issuing of licences," the COAI Director-General, Mr T. V. Ramachandran, said. According to COAI, the annual licence fee should be prescribed at six per cent of adjusted gross revenue (five per cent towards universal service and one per cent as administrative cost) subject to a minimum fixed levy to deter non-serious players.

COAI has said the benefit of two per cent reduction in revenue share granted to the first and second cellular licensee should not be disturbed even under the new regime.

At the open house, Mr S.C. Khanna, Secretary-General of Association of Basic Telecom Operators (ABTO), also shared COAI's view that licence fee should be six per cent of adjusted gross revenue.

COAI represents the global standard for mobile (GSM) operators such as Hutch, Bharti and Idea, while ABTO represents the code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile operators such as Reliance and Tata.

The ABTO said the registration charges or entry fee should be a one-time charge at the time of entry to the unified licensing regime.

"The primary objective of fixing the registration charges or entry fee for unified licence should be to ensure that the existing operators who have paid certain amounts are no worse off than the new entrants," Mr Khanna said.

At another open house session on limiting the number of tariff plans offered by the access providers, the ABTO submitted that TRAI should not introduce any restrictions on the number of tariff plans on offer in the market.

COAI also agreed that there should not be any cap on the tariff plans and the same should be left to what the operators wanted to offer to their consumers.

More Stories on : Regulatory Bodies & Rulings | Telecommunications

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page