The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is looking at imposing penalties and rollback of spectrum from 4G operators who do not meet rollout obligations.
At present, there is no provision of liquidates damages or default in fulfilling rollout obligations for Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum as for 3G spectrum.
According to a DoT proposal, BWA spectrum would be taken back for non-fulfilment of rollout obligations, sources in the Ministry of Telecommunications & Information Technology said. The DoT, which is the licensor for telecom services in the country, would also seek Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s opinion before imposing stringent penalties for failure of 4G rollout obligations.
Reliance Industries, which won pan-India 4G spectrum in the various tranches of spectrum auction, is expected to rollout the services by the end of this year.
Gearing up for the launch, Reliance Jio, the wireless subsidiary of Reliance Industries, has entered into a number of infrastructure deals.
Aircel, an winner of the airwaves, was also gearing up for the rollout of 4G services and had appointed Chinese infrastructure company ZTE Corp for deployment of LTE network. There is no update on the rollout plans of Tikona and Augere.