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Cabinet okays unified license regime

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CIOL Bureau
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NEW DELHI: Paving the way for full mobility services by WLL operators in India, the Union Cabinet has decided to unify the licenses of basic and cellular telecom services in the country. Informing this to the media after the meeting Communication and IT Minister, Arun Shourie said that the Cabinet has given a go ahead to the recommendations of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on unified license regime.







The Cabinet decision follows yesterday’s decision by the group of ministers (GoM) on telecom to allow single license for cellular and basic phones services in India. The regulator's roadmap said limited mobility firms, whose services work only within a city, would have to pay an additional fee, and a fine in some cases, to allow their users to roam seamlessly just as customers of cellular companies.







As per the new regime fee structure, Reliance which has a network in 17 of the 22 circles making up the domestic telecoms sector, would have to pay about Rs 1600 crore as entry fee for converting into a full cellular player. The amount includes penalty for offering roaming on its WLL-M service, which the GoM has said, was in violation of rules. Tata Teleservices, on the other hand would have to cough up around Rs 500 crore to get on to the bandwagon.







The new licensing scheme would allow phone companies to offer cellular, WLL-M and landline services on single authorization. What this means is an end to service specific licensing in India that would eventually help telecom service providers to offer other services like STD, ISD and Internet services. Under the existing laws, firms buy separate permits for different services, but companies have often been offering services beyond their area of operation, leading to the bloodbath in the sector and prolonged legal battles.







Analysts suggest that the decision would finally remove the barriers on rational use of technological capability imposed by the earlier regime and largely benefit the users. However, they also agree that the move that is likely to benefit fixed-line firms like Reliance and Tata Teleservices in providing cheaper limited radius mobile services, would harm cellular players who are already deep in losses.







Decrying the GoM’s decision yesterday, the country’s cellular operators had yesterday said that the decision to allow Reliance and Tata Teleservices to become full cellular operators had deeply disheartened them.

Describing the decision as ‘unfortunate’ the COAI had in a statement issued to the media yesterday said, "it is unfortunate that the cellular industry, which has invested Rs 25,000 crore is being treated in such a caviler manner to accommodate WLL-M players, one of who had admittedly garnered a base of 5 million consumers in a blatantly illegal manner by ignoring all conditions of policy and license."







Shourie, however, informed the media that no decision was taken by the Cabinet on enhancing foreign investment limit in telecom sector to 74 per cent from 49 per cent. The GoM had in yesterday’s meeting said that it was leaving the decision of raising foreign investment limit in telecom to the Cabinet because of the apprehensions raised by the country’s intelligence agencies.





(CNS)

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