TRAI recommends single licence regime for cellular, basic service
By Our Economy Bureau | 28 Oct 2003
New Delhi: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended a single licence regime for cellular and basic service operations. TRAI has suggested a six-month timeframe to replace the existing licence regime with unified licensing through an automatic process for all telecom services.
TRAI chairman Pradip Baijal says the objective of the unified licence regime is to be achieved in a two-stage process with the unified access regime for basic and cellular services in the first phase, to be followed by a process to define the guidelines and rules for fully unified license / authorisation regime. "The charge for spectrum shall be determined separately."
The
choice of area under the unified license will be left
to the operator. The existing operators will have an option
to continue under the present licensing regime (with present
terms and conditions) or migrate to new unified access
licensing regime in the existing circles. The license
fee, service area, rollout obligations and performance
bank guarantee under the new regime will be same as for
existing cellular service providers.
