The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is likely to ask Bharti Airtel to pay Rs 4.06 billion for merging four internet licences acquired by the company from Qualcomm along with its unified licences.
In 2010, Qualcomm had received the internet service providers (ISP) licence by acquiring broadband spectrum in 2010. As per the government policy at the time of auctioning broadband wireless access spectrum, players holding ISP licence were not allowed to offer voice services. However, following the introduction of the unified licencing regime, in case an operator holding ISP licence wants to offer voice services then it can do so by paying a one-time migration fee.
Earlier, DoT had asked Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) to pay Rs 16.5 billion for migrating to the unified licencing regime. However, Bharti Airtel is of the view that the operator?s case is different from that of RJIL because the former already possessed a unified access licence and had paid a licence fee of Rs 16.5 billion earlier. Therefore, demand for any additional fee would tantamount to paying double licence fee.
Bharti Airtel had sought DoT?s approval for merging its broadband wireless access services in four circles of Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana and Kerala with its mobile operations in the corresponding service areas.
