DoT clears decks for revenue sharing

Apart from this, after TRAI’s recent paper on tariffs, the paging operators will be eligible to get a share out of the tariffs from calls made to pagers which washitherto collected by DoT/MTNL alone. The telecom department has proposed that paging companies pay one sixth of their revenue to the department instead of the fixed licence fee from the fourth year of the licence.

Paging operators, in their representations to the TRAI, have also claimed that the present proposed share in tariffs fixed for paging companies as 20 paise against Rs 1.30 collected by DoT/MTNL be also revised upwards. They have demanded a revenue of 60 to 70 paise per call (at par with cellular operators who as per the TRAI’s tariff paper will get 15 per cent of the Rs 1.30 per minute call made to a cellular phone from a normal landline phone).

The decision on this will be taken by the TRAI which if decides to the paging operators demands may have to decide on one of the two options before it hike call rates made to pagers from the Rs 1.50 proposed in their tariff paper or reduce DoT’s share in this revenue and give a part of it to the paging companies.

The TRAI is expected to take adecision on the issue in the next six to eight weeks. According to DoT sources, “An indication to the movement towards a revenue sharing arrangement with paging operators in cities was present in the licence conditions which had fixed the licence fees for the first three years leaving the option open preferably for revenue sharing from the fourth year onwards.”

With DoT giving its green signal to the first telecom service moving towards a revenue sharing arrangement, metro operators for cellular licences in the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Calcutta are optimistic that even their demands to a revenue sharing arrangement be looked at. However, sources in DoT are sceptical about the demands of cellular operators.

They say that in the case of paging services the option is clearly mentioned in the licence conditions and hence did not involve any deviation from the original agreement whereas in the case of cellular services it would be a violation of the existing licence agreement.