Operators likely to approach court against DoT?s move to impose one-time licence fee

The majority of the operators plan to approach court challenging the notices issued by the Department of Telecommunications? (DoT) to pay one-time licence fee, says news reports.

DoT has issued notices to leading operators informing them about the imposition of one-time licence fee both prospectively and retrospectively, from January 1, 2013.

The one-time fee imposed by DoT on the existing operators has two components to it. DoT has asked the operators to pay one-time licence fee for the 2G excess spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz prospectively for the remaining period of their licences. This spectrum fee is based on the price discovered in the recently concluded 2G spectrum auction. Also, incumbent GSM operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited will be charged a one-time fee retrospectively for the ?excess? 2G spectrum that they hold beyond 6.2 MHz from July 2008 to December 2012. The spectrum fee for this period will be determined by indexing the 2001 spectrum auction prices to the interest rates of State Bank of India.