The Minister for Communications and IT, Kapil Sibal has announced key policy measures aimed at bringing clarity on the policy front.
Besides reiterating that future licences will be delinked from spectrum and additional airwaves will be available at market rates, the Minister stated that companies operating in the same circle will be allowed to share 2G spectrum.
The ministry has fixed the uniform revenue share at 8 per cent of operator?s adjusted gross revenue, as against TRAI’s suggestion to reduce this levy gradually to 6 per cent over the next three years.
However, the demand of incumbents that the revenue of tower units should be exempted while calculating the parent company’s overall revenue share has been accepted.
Sibal has stated that all telecom companies will be required to migrate to the unified licence. The migration fee would be about Rs 200 million for a pan-India player. Other details will be unveiled by TRAI soon.
The prescribed limit for holding a GSM spectrum has been enhanced to 8 MHz in all regions except Delhi and Mumbai, where the cap is at 10 MHz. In the case of CDMA operators the limit is at 5 MHz and 6.25 MHz, respectively. All operators can acquire more than the prescribed limit in the open market through auctions, subject to the condition that they do not end up holding more than 25 per cent of total bandwidth in the region.
However, companies such as Bharti, Vodafone and BSNL, whose bandwidth holdings are higher than the revised limits in certain regions will have to surrender their excess holdings only when their licences come up for renewal in 2014.
Further, the licences of incumbents such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India that will be due for renewal in 2014 will be automatically extended for another 10 years but all details, including pricing of spectrum will be worked out soon.
However, the decisions on all matters relating to pricing of spectrum and one-time fee had been deferred by the Ministry for the time being.
