Vodafone India offers to pay Rs 40 billion for the extension of its existing licences

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Vodafone India is willing to pay a fee of Rs 40 billion and a spectrum usage charge of 3 per cent for extending its licences in the Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata circles for 20 years, say news reports.

The operators? licences in the three circles are coming up for renewal in the last quarter of 2014. Earlier, the government had suggested that incumbent operators will have to participate in the forthcoming spectrum auction if they wanted to continue providing telecom services using their existing spectrum.

Earlier, The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had recommended that the spectrum in the 900 MHz in the three metros should be priced at Rs 6.5 billion per MHz. Following TRAI?s recommendations, Vodafone India would have to pay a fee of Rs 154.7 billion for retaining spectrum in the three circles. Currently, the operator holds 23.8 MHz of spectrum in the Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata circles.