The Hindu Business Line : Over 200 seek telecom licence as deadline ends

Hinduja TMT and real estate developer Omaxe Ltd were among the last of the eleventh-hour hopefuls who applied for universal access telecom licences on Monday, the last day for applications.The Board of Hinduja TMT approved the application for telecom licence by the company, a notice to the stock exchanges said. Omaxe too said it proposed to file an application with the Department of Telecommunications through a wholly owned subsidiary Satvik Hitech Builders Pvt Ltd.The Hindujas had earlier been in a joint venture with Hutchison in the Gujarat circle providing GSM services under the brand name *Fascel.'There are now over 200 applications for universal access licences with DoT. Only some of the applicants - such as Tata Teleservices, Idea Cellular, Spice and BPL Mobile - are operating telephony companies wishing to expand their footprint or which have a presence in telecom-related businesses. The other applicants are Swan Telecom (through which Reliance Communications is applying for GSM spectrum), Stel, Allied Infratech, Datacom, ByCell, Cheetah and Tulip IT.There is a clutch of unlikely applicants from the real estate industry. These are Indiabulls, Unitech, Parsvnath, DLF and now, Omaxe. Although the regulations currently allow for unlimited players, a problem would arise if everyone wants to provide mobile telephony since spectrum is limited.

Spectrum crunch

"And mobile telephony is currently the most desired business for these applicants," said a telecom analyst. Already, existing players are complaining about spectrum scarcity. The Department of Telecommunications has constituted a committee to examine these applications and to formulate a new set of guidelines for processing these applications. Guidelines will have to be devised to keep out some of the hopefuls, said a telecom sector analyst. "Of course the applicants could provide wire line services too, but that is currently unattractive because of the huge capital costs and long break-even period," he said.The industry expectation is that players, which are already operating wireless telecom licences and which are seeking to expand their footprint, might get preference over the other applicants.

Applicants' listHinduja TMT and real estate developer Omaxe Ltd were among the last of the eleventh-hour hopefuls. Tata Teleservices, Idea Cellular, Spice and BPL Mobile are some of the applicants.Realty companies such as Indiabulls, Unitech, Parsvnath, and DLF also in the race.