New Policy By Indian Government For 2G Auction

Feb 21

08:28

2012

Ninad Avasare

Indian Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal announced new policy for mobile phone licenses. Earlier due to the supreme Court Judgment Government have to separate spectrum allocation from the grant of permits. In the earlier old rules licenses were bundled with 4.4 MHz air-wave. So on the announcement of new policy in Delhi, India on Feb 15 government declared that it has unbundled spectrum from package and it would start issuing licenses without any spectrum attach that would allow service provider to function across the country with single permit.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority Of India (TRAI) will soon issue recommendation about implementation of new policy.and in the earlier rules operator paid Indian Government Rs. 1650 crores for licenses bundled with spectrum. Spectrum for entrant operator & 6.2 MHz spectrum for larger operators.

According to the new policy Govt. of India has increased bandwidth limit to 5 MHz for CDMA operators and 8 MHz for GSM technologies. The buyer of license will have to pay Rs. 2 crores to Indian Government in circle A, Rs. 1 crores in circle B and Rs. 50 lakhs in circle C. Operators will also have to pay a uniform license fee 8 percent of adjusted gross revenues from the next financial year. DoT declared that spectrum usage charges and fee will be payable on average gross revenues. Government also has increased bandwidth limit for Delhi and Mumbai. New bandwidth limit will be 10 MHz and 6.2 MHz respectively. It will also allow merger of service providers. According to the recommendations from TRAI if market share is more than 35 percent and both companies together hold no more than 25 percent spectrum in service area then merger between two companies is possible. Dot will decide on the rules and spectrum pricing of the new upcoming 2G auctions soon.

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