TDSAT limits WLL146;s mobility, orders entry fee

The Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal today in a divided judgement allowed WLL based mobile services to operate even as it p...

The Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal today in a divided judgement allowed WLL based mobile services to operate even as it put several restrictions on the area of coverage of the services and the fact that the companies running these services would have to pay entry fees in order to fulfil the 8216;level playing field conditions,8217; for cellphone companies. This could mean that consumers using these services could have to cough up more than what they are currently paying if companies decide to pass on the extra financial burden imposed on them.

The judgement had a dissent with the Chairman of the TDSAT and former Supreme Court judge Justice D P Wadhwa disagreeing with the other two members of the TDSAT. However, as per the TDSAT Act, the majority verdict would prevail.

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Communications Minister Arun Shourie spoke to Navika Kumar following the TDSAT judgement.

8216;8216;The judgement is a good one, in fact it would have been difficult if it had gone the other way declared WLL services illegal. What would we have done with the four million customers using these WLL- mobile services ?

8217;8217;8216;8216;As far as the government is concerned, there is one operational part of the judgement that operators offering WLL services should have been charged some licence fee. The TDSAT has given us four months to do so. I have already asked officials in the Department to start work on this early next week. We will have to device a formula by which we can determine what this licence fee should be. We will even approach the TRAI for their recommendations. 8217;8217;8216;8216;These disputes will continue to arise as technology allows everything while licences are specific. Even in the judgement there are differences between members. Therefore the move to create a unified licence could solve all these problems.8217;8217;

On Justice Wadhwa8217;s indictment of the government Shourie said :8216;8216;He is a distinguished legal luminary and I will not like to comment on his observations.8217;8217;

What is interesting is that while the chairperson of the TDSAT has changed between and the first and the second judgement, the other two members have remained the same. These two members have this time pointed out in their majority view that introduction of limited mobility services had disturbed the level-playing conditions for cellphone operators and hence suggested a number of steps to address these issues.

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It also noted that since limited mobility was a value addition to WLL basic service and it had a definite impact on the playing field conditions, 8216;8216;there is enough justification for imposing additional entry fee over and above what they are paying as required under basic service licence agreement.8217;8217;

Wadhwa however stated : 8216;8216;Since it has been held that grant of limited mobility and use of handsets is not legal, the question of considering level-playing field would not arise.8217;8217;

Justice Wadhwa also came down heavily on the Telecom Regulator TRAI saying that it8217;s approach to the issue was faulty. 8216;8216;It posed a wrong question and got a wrong answer. The first and foremost question should have been if the WLL is permissible at all. You cannot give correct answer when you start with a question whether WLL with mobility should be permitted,8217;8217; Wadhwa stated.

He said despite the dismal performance by fixed service providers in village telephony, government had rewarded them by allowing them limited mobility and use of handsets instead of taking action against them as given in the terms of the licence agreement.

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Cellphone operators were happy about the judgement as they stated it had upheld their contention that the market had been disrupted and level playing field conditions had been violated. 8216;8216;The judgement by the lone judicial member is clearly in our favour and upholds our contention in the Supreme Court. It is also clear that the WLL operators will now have to comply with service area boundaries for the coverage of their services immediately and then will also have to pay fees to level the playing field,8217;8217; said a cellular operator.

A spokesperson for Reliance Infocomm Amit Khanna on the other hand said:8216;8216;WLL services have been declared legitimate and we are happy we have expanded the market base.8217;8217;