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The Department of Telecom may not cancel 62 of the 74 licences of various mobile operators who allegedly did not fulfil roll out obligations as suggested by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
The licensing wing of the DoT has taken a view that the recommendations of the TRAI are not in line with the roll out obligations as stipulated under existing laws.
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. These licences belong to nine operators including Etisalat DB, Loop Telecom, Sistema Shyam, Uninor and Videocon.
The key difference between the TRAI and the DoT's views is on the interpretation of 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 geographies to meet the roll out obligation.
“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,” said a DoT official.
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.
“Thirty-one licensees have not reported any subscriber number within two years of allocation of spectrum, 29 licensees have not neither filed any tariff plan nor reported annual revenue figures to TRAI. It may be noted that the very purpose of mandating the roll out obligation is to ensure that the spectrum given is effectively utilised to provide service to the public,” the TRAI had said in its communication to the DoT.
A final decision on this issue will be taken by the Telecom Commission after DoT takes the opinion of the Law Ministry.
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