The Telecom Commission on Friday finalised licence conditions for successful bidders in the forthcoming spectrum auction. For a pan-India licence, an operator will have to pay Rs 15 crore. Fee for the state-level licence has been fixed at Rs 1 crore.
In a meeting presided by the R Chandrasekhar, secretary, department of telecommunications, the commission decided to do away with the existing system of categorisation of circles in three categories — A, B and C — on the basis of revenue-generation potential. Under the new regime, the companies will have to pay equal licence fee of R1 crore for all states, except Jammu and Kashmir and North East, where the licence fee is Rs 50 lakh."We welcome the government’s decision to introduce the new regime. It will bring transparency in the system," said Rajan S Mathews, director-general, Cellular Operators
Association of India (COAI).
The government will start the process of auction for providing mobile telecom services from November 12, following a Supreme Court order dated February 2 cancelling 122 licences issued during the regime of former communications and IT minister A Raja. This is for the first time that spectrum has been delinked from licences. Earlier, all mobile licences were bundled with 4.4 MHz of spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band and 2.5 MHz of spectrum in the 800 MHz band.
The government will start the process of auction for providing mobile telecom services from November 12, following a Supreme Court order dated February 2 cancelling 122 licences issued during the regime of former communications and IT minister A Raja. This is for the first time that spectrum has been delinked from licences. Earlier, all mobile licences were bundled with 4.4 MHz of spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band and 2.5 MHz of spectrum in the 800 MHz band.