The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will reportedly release the second generation of reforms for the telecom sector soon. The set of reforms will primarily be aimed at simplifying the licensing process, rationalising penalties, and faster granting of spectrum for trial purposes.
According to industry sources, the DoT also plans to launch a framework for a regulatory sandbox, which will provide a lab-kind platform for start-ups, telecom operators, equipment manufacturers, and academia, to discover and test new use cases and innovative solutions.
The reforms are aimed at facilitating ease of doing business in the sector. For instance, with regard to penalties, non-compliance or violation of unified licence (UL) terms lead to a fine of up to Rs 500 million per instance, per service area, at present. However, this may be replaced with a graded penalty structure, based on industry suggestions. The government has also proposed to rationalise the penalty structure, with the highest slab of Rs 50 million in the Draft Indian Telecommunications Bill.
Meanwhile, with regard to the allocation of spectrum for trial purposes, the DoT currently takes around eight weeks to grant final approval. This process may be done away with and operators may be provided spectrum once they self-certify the purpose for acquiring the spectrum.
