Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) has approached the government for surrendering a part of its spectrum used for providing CDMA-based mobile services. The decision comes as a result of the operator?s efforts to avoid paying the one-time licence fee proposed by the government.
Earlier, the operator received a demand notice from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to pay Rs 11.52 billion as the one-time licence fee for holding additional spectrum beyond 2.5 MHz in the 800 MHz band. Following the demand notice, TTSL has decided to surrender a total of 21.25 MHz of spectrum which it holds across the country. The move would help it reduce its liability to Rs 0.62 billion for holding additional spectrum in Delhi and Mumbai circles.
Further, TTSL has communicated to DoT that it will complete the surrendering process by August 2013. The operator plans to reorganise its network to ensure that the move does not impact its subscribers. Further, following the surrender of the additional spectrum, TTSL will retain about 2.5 MHz spectrum in majority of the circles where it offers telecom services. Since, the operator has a large subscriber base in Delhi and Mumbai circles, it has decided to retain a higher share of spectrum in these two circles. TTSL is going to retain 3.75 MHz spectrum in these two circles.
The government has decided to levy a one-time licence fee on operators as it had earlier allocated spectrum on subscriber-linked criteria without charging any additional fee from them. . Besides the CDMA players, the government has also asked GSM operators to pay a one-time licence fee for holding additional spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz. GSM operators have challenged the government?s decision in the court.
