DoT to develop a mechanism to segregate revenues earned by operators from BWA and 2G

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has set up a high level committee under the deputy director general (DDG) to segregate revenues earned by an operator from broadband wireless access (BWA) and 2G services. The move is aimed at eliminating existing anomalies in spectrum usage charges (SUC) levied on the revenue earned by telecom operators from the two services.

At present, the government levies an SUC of one per cent on the revenue earned by operators from BWA services, whereas an SUC of five per cent is imposed on revenues earned from 2G services.

The five member committee will have DDG access services and telecom engineering centre personnel as its members. DoT has asked the committee to submit its report by May, 15, 2014.

Earlier, the Empowered Group of Ministers on spectrum pricing had recommended that a committee be set up to segregate the revenue from different usage of spectrum.