DoT considers introducing unified licensing regime at the circle level

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is examining the proposal of introducing unified licensing regime at the circle level.

Earlier, DoT was working on introducing unified licensing regime at the pan-India level for a single licence and a district level licence.

At present, telecom licenses are categorised on the basis of region. Under the current licensing regime, operators are given licenses based on the area of their operations. So if an operator is offering services in Delhi, it gets a ?Metro? category licence and a player operating in Bihar gets a ?Circle C? category licence.

Under the existing regime, the operators have to seek separate licences for the type of service that they offer. Also, they have to pay a higher licence fee for metros compared to other circles.

However, under the new unified licensing regime operators will have to pay a flat fee of 8 per cent of their annual revenues. Also, they will be allowed to offer different services under one licence.