Comments
The Department of Telecom has sought Additional Solicitor General’s opinion on the next course of action on 3G roaming issue.
The Department had readied show cause notices to be issued to mobile companies but has now held it back following the split verdict by the telecom tribunal.
The DoT has asked whether it can proceed to take action against the operators despite the split verdict by the tribunal.
Split verdict
The telecom tribunal gave a split verdict on permitting roaming agreements between telecom players offering third generation (3G) mobile services. While the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal Chairman, Mr Justice S.B. Sinha, ruled in favour of the operators, TDSAT’s other member, Mr P. K. Rastogi, gave a verdict against the roaming deals.
In December, the Government had issued a notice to the operators, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, asking them to stop intra-circle roaming for 3G services.
The TDSAT Chairman felt the DoT had not followed the procedure and the operators were not given time to put down their views. According to Mr Justice Sinha, it was a violation of natural justice.
Setting aside the DoT’s order to operators to stop intra-circle roaming, he asked the Department to start the procedure afresh by giving operators enough time to respond. Mr Justice Sinha said after hearing the operators, the Department can pass appropriate orders. The split verdict has left DoT unclear about what it can do next. Therefore, it has asked the Additional Solicitor General to clarify whether it can still take action against the operators or should it send fresh show cause notices.
Current licence
The current licence rules allow operators to enter into roaming agreements to enable subscribers get seamless coverage as they move from one circle to another. But in the case of 3G services, operators are selling connections even where they do not have spectrum.
For example, in Madhya Pradesh neither Bharti Airtel nor Vodafone has 3G spectrum but they have 36,490 and 1,558 subscribers, respectively, according to the DoT. This is possible because the two operators have entered into an agreement with Idea Cellular.
The DoT said such an arrangement is tantamount to spectrum sharing, which is not permitted under the licence conditions. The operators have defended their action saying the DoT itself had clarified before the 3G auction that intra-circle roaming will be permitted.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.