After several rounds of consultation, the Telecom Commission has taken a decision on spectrum pricing and allocation. It has decided to impose a one-time fee for extra spectrum beyond the contracted limit of 6.2 MHz, which will be charged from the date of allocation.
Also, the price of spectrum between 4.4 MHz and 6.2 MHz will be decided via the auction route. Currently, spectrum is bundled with a licence and is priced at Rs 16.5 billion.
Before the Telecom Commission?s proposal is implemented, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) plans to ask the Ministry of Law and Justice for its opinion on whether an additional fee can be imposed.
Prior to this, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had recommended that each MHz of additional spectrum, after the 6.2 MHz limit, held by operators should entail a one-time charge of Rs 45.71 billion (all-India).
The regulator also suggested that the one-time fee varies from circle to circle and that operators would have to pay only for those circles where they hold extra spectrum.
Meanwhile, the regulator?s proposal was opposed by the operators, who said that existing telecom licences contained no such clause which permitted imposing such a levy. Moreover, these operators have claimed that the spectrum allotted to them was as per the existing policy.
Operators are in favour of adopting the auction route to determine the one-time fee for spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz.
