3 telcos cough up fine for delayed services

Facing cancellation of licences for missing service rollout obligations, at least three telecommunication companies - Etisalat DB Telecom, Loop Telecom and Unitech Wireless - have paid a penalty to the department of telecommunications (DoT).

Mobile telephony companies in India need to launch their services within a year of receiving radio bandwidth, failing which they have to pay a penalty. The DoT earlier this month issued notices to several companies, including Sistema Shyam Teleservices and Videocon Telecommunications, in this regard.

The penalty payments were prompted by a Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the issue of allotments of new licenses and bandwidth in January 2008, and also because of a proposal by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

Etisalat DB Telecom, earlier known as Swan Telecom, paid a penalty of about Rs9.9 crore for four service areas, the company said in a statement Wednesday.

An executive at Loop Telecom, declining to be named, said the company had paid Rs2.75 crore as penalty to the DoT for three service areas. It has licenses to offer mobile telephony services in 21 service areas in the country.

Unitech Wireless said that it paid a penalty, but it didn't say how much it paid and for how many service areas.