In a relief to mobile operators, Attorney-General of India Mr Goolam Vahnavati has backed the views of Department of Telecom on meeting roll-out obligation. Going by the legal opinion, there will not be any change in the existing roll-out norms.
The DoT and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had different opinions on roll-out obligation. The DoT's licensing wing has taken a view that according to the licence conditions, operators are only required to commission their network in specific percentage of a geographical area to meet the roll-out obligation.
On the other hand, TRAI reckons that it is not enough to just set up the network in place but operators are required to offer services to subscribers
According to the DoT, the operators need to get a certificate from the authorised testing party that network systems are in place within one year. The operators may start providing service to consumers at any time.
The AG's views were taken by DoT in the light a TRAI's recommendations to cancel 74 licences for allegedly not fulfilling roll-out obligations. While the DoT has sent show-cause notices for terminating 12 licences, the TRAI had pushed for cancelling 62 more licences.
Of this, 31 licences were supposed to have been cancelled outright for completely missing the roll out obligations while the other 31 licences were supposed to have been cancelled after taking legal view, according to the TRAI.
Keywords: Roll-out obligation, DoT, Attorney-General, DoT's licensing
