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The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has urged the corporate entities to comply with Department of Telecommunications guidelines while seeking bulk connections for their employees.
The DoT has announced various guidelines to expedite the process and instructions to be followed for the issuance of new mobile connections in case of bulk connections category. This requirement is reiterated by the government from time to time.
The procedure
As per the guidelines, the organisations who wish to purchase mobile connections in bulk for their employees need to follow a certain process. For instance, the entity needs to have an authorised person as their ‘Authorised Signatory’ for buying connections on behalf of the company.
He/ she needs to provide the telecom service providers (TSPs) with documents such as authorisation letter, document to establish the identity and address of entity/ company, along with the proof of identity document of the ‘Authorised Signatory’.
There is no need to provide identity and address documents of individual users of the mobile connections, however, the end user list of the employees who would be using these mobile connections within the company is to be provided by them.
“The telecom industry has to comply with the government order so as to ensure that details of the users are available even in the case of bulk customers from corporate clients. We urge the corporates to cooperate with our member TSPs in providing details as per the user list provided by DoT,” SP Kochhar, Director General, COAI, said on Monday.
This will ensure that the statutory requirements are met from both the ends – the TSPs and the corporates, he said.
RoW portal
Meanwhile, COAI has also welcomed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI’s) recommendations on resolution of various issues – the proposed national Right of Way (RoW) portal, exemption of RoW charges for five years for expeditious laying of common ducts, streamlining RoW permission process with more participation of utility departments and central agencies, uniform restoration charges and auction of mid-band spectrum and assignment of backhaul spectrum.
These recommendations by TRAI will make the 4G services and infrastructure more robust and accelerate implementation of 5G technology in India, it said.
The recommendation for exemption of RoW charges for the next five years – from fiscal year 2022-23 to FY 2027-28 – will significantly reduce the overall cost of roll-out for TSPs, the telecom industry body said.
“Exemption of RoW charges for next five years, auction of mid-band spectrum, allocation of millimetre wave range, and assigning of backhaul spectrum to TSPs will go a long way in boosting India’s 4G services and infrastructure, and in paving the way for the smooth roll out of 5G services in India in the near future,” Kochhar said.
To pave the way for India 5G ready at the earliest, TRAI had suggested to expedite auction of available mid-band spectrum — 3300 MHz to 3600 MHz, and allocation of spectrum in mm-wave range – to enhance the availability of spectrum for diversification of broadband services.
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