Separate telecom licences for cellphone, WLL or fixed phone services may be a thing of the past as the Group of Ministers on telecom on Thursday paved the way for a unified licencing regime accepting the recommendations of the telecom regulator TRAI earlier this week. Under the new Unified Licensing regime, companies like Reliance and Tatas providing WLL mobile services would have to pay an additional entry fee. The recommendation of the GoM for combining the licences for basic and cellular operators as also levy of additional fee for WLL services would be put up to the Cabinet on Friday for a final decision. Addressing newspersons after the GoM meeting here, Communications and IT Minister Arun Shourie said : “The GoM has accepted the TRAI recommendations on unified licence and entry fee to be charged for WLL operators in toto. A Cabinet note in this regard shall be prepared tonight and we will request the Cabinet secretary to include it in the agenda for tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting.’’ As a result of the decision, Reliance Infocomm would be required to pay an additional Rs 1,581 crore for migrating to a unified regime which includes Rs 1,096 crore towards migration fee and Rs 485 crore as penalty as recommended by TRAI for offering cellular-type fully mobile services, the minister said. After all companies are migrated to the new unified licensing regime, any additional spectrum requirement for new services would be done on payment as per the guidelines from TRAI. Shourie also said that the government had filed a caveat in various high courts apprehending a possible move for a stay by cellular operators. Cellular operators have already moved the Supreme Court asking the court to implement the TDSAT’s order to limit the range of WLL mobile services. Reliance Infocomm has welcomed the decision. The move would help in moving towards a unified telecom licence and eliminate the confusion prevailing in the sector, Reliance Infocomm said in a release. Cellular operators on the other hand called the GoM’s decision unfair and did not rule out more litigations on the issue. As per the recommendations, WLL operators wanting to migrate to the unified regime would be required to pay the difference of the entry fee for the fourth cellular operator and the entry fee already paid by them. Shourie stated that the finance ministry would be addressing the problems of cellular operators with regard to their meeting the obligations towards financial institutions. He, however, declined to give details about the issue but said there was ‘‘no case for any compensation to the cellular operators in lieu of unification of basic and cellular licences.’’ GoM’s earlier recommendations on increasing foreign direct investment in telecom sector to 74 per cent could face some resistance as one of the intelligence agencies had raised some concerns over the move, Shourie said, adding ‘‘we shall report the existing position and the consequences as pointed out by intelligence agencies to the Cabinet.’’ Shourie said the group had also attached importance to proper use of spectrum which was a scarce resource and that trai has been requested to formulate a scheme incorporating incentives for efficient use of spectrum and strong disincentives for inefficient use. The existing operators must continue to provide limited services also for those subscribers who so desire. Shourie said with respect to rural telephony, the proposal to activate the uso fund is finalised and will be submitted to the Cabinet, and the first step would be amendment of Indian Telegraph Act.
