The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has expressed its disappointed with the government’s decision on allowing captive private networks to participate in the 5G spectrum allocation. To this end, COAI has demanded a level-playing-field, arguing that solution providers should also pay license fee and GST at the rates applicable for telcos on the billed amount of revenue. COAI has also requested the authority to ensure that such captive networks must remain truly private and isolated, and adhere to security norms.
The COAI, in a letter to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), has urged the government to restrict scope of non-public networks to machine-to-machine (M2M) communication inside the specific premise and plant automation only. COAI has also asserted that such networks must ensure they do not cause any interference to public networks.
Besides, from a national security perspective, COAI has requested the DoT to ensure that the private networks comply with the prescribed subscriber verification norms, so as to ensure adequate verification and traceability of every user. To this end, COAI has suggested for a periodic audit to ensure compliance.
Further, COAI, in its note, cautioned to assign spectrum to the captive networks only in non IMT/5G/commercial bands else there might be shortage of harmonised spectrum for telcos’ network, inefficient utilisation of the precious spectrum, and loss to the exchequer. The submission further noted that the private networks’ set-up using dedicated spectrum must be bound by same security conditions as applicable for telcos, that is storing call or data records for 2 years, command logs for 3 years, keeping records of software updates, data localisation, remote access only from in-country and no remote access outside of India. To this end, COAI made a pitch for ‘same service same rule’, asserting that this will ensure investor’s confidence and continuous investments in the sector for roll-out of future telecommunication networks.
