Unified licensing norms issued
By Our Economy Bureau | 12 Nov 2003
New Delhi: The Department of Telecommunications has issued guidelines to enable the existing operators to switch over to the new licence in keeping with the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Cellular operators will not have to pay any additional entry fee to convert their existing licence to the "unified access service licence." Existing basic operators, however, will have to pay the difference between the fourth cellular licence and the entry fees that they had initially paid.
Reliance Infocomm can now pay Rs 1,096 crore and convert the basic licences to a unified service licence to offer full mobility for their limited mobility subscribers. Tata Teleservices can also do so by paying Rs 545 crore.
The existing operators will have an option to continue with their existing licensing regime or migrate to the unified licence regime in the existing service areas, with the existing allocated / contracted spectrum. The licence fee, service area, rollout obligations and performance bank guarantee will be the same as for the fourth cellular service providers.