The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has decided to take the advice of the Attorney General on whether it should impose a fee on Bharti Airtel for merging the four Internet licences acquired from Qualcomm with its existing unified licences.

While the DoT reckons that Airtel has to pay ₹436 crore for merging the licences, the company has refuted it. Airtel had acquired Qualcomm’s broadband spectrum in four circles.

Qualcomm had taken the Internet Service Provider’s licence for acquiring the broadband spectrum in 2010. But an operator with Internet licence is not allowed to offer voice service.

Therefore, under the new unified licence regime, if an operator with Internet licence wants to offer voice services, then it would have to pay a one-time migration fee.

The DoT had earlier asked Reliance Jio to pay ₹1,650 crore for migrating its Internet licences to the unified licence. However, Airtel has argued that its case was different from that of Reliance because the former already possessed a unified access licence and had paid ₹1,650 crore earlier. Any additional fee would be tantamount to paying double licence fee.

Bharti Airtel had sought DoT approval for merging its broadband wireless access services in the four circles of Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana and Kerala.

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