Long-distance: Telecom majors may oppose single licence
New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) issuance of a consultation paper on unified licence for long-distance services with the basic and cellular services may invite opposition from many of the bigger telecom players. They include Reliance, Bharti and the Tata group. Industry sources were quoted as saying that in the event of a unified licence for the entire telecom sector, the integrated operators will be the end-losers since they have already paid huge amounts as licence fee for long-distance operations apart from having invested heavily in the infrastructure for rolling out these services.

So, if new operators are allowed to enter this segment by paying just a portion of this amount, it could lead to resentment among the bigger players. The sources also said that the Tata group would be hurt the most, as it had acquired VSNL by paying a huge premium, without anticipating that a unified licence was in the offing. As it is, the introduction of a unified access service licence for basic and cellular services, while being to the advantage of the basic operators, has not come without a cost.
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