A Department of Telecommunications (DoT) committee has accepted the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India?s (TRAI) recommendation for imposing a one-time fee for spectrum that they hold beyond the contracted amount.
The move, if cleared by the full Telecom Commission, will require operators such as Bharti airtel, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Uninor, Loop Telecom, Tata Teleservices Limited and Reliance Communications, to pay a total of Rs 247 billion.
Prior to this, had said the new operators should pay commercial rates for spectrum beyond 4.2 MHz that they got with the licences. It said the older operators should pay extra for spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz. The regulator had earlier said that the price should be directly propotional to what was discovered in the 3G auctions of 2010.
However, its latest recommendations said 2G spectrum up to 6.2 MHz be priced at 53 per cent of the 3G auction price. It said companies be charged 136 per cent of the 3G price for spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz.
Based on these calcuations, the older operators will have to pay Rs 177 billion for spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz. The new operators together will have to pay over Rs 70 billion when they seek spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz.
