Telecom panel decision today on licences

The successful bidders in the forthcoming auction for spectrum will have to acquire pan-India licence for Rs 15 crore. To acquire state-level licences, the bidders would have to pay Rs 1 crore.

The successful bidders in the forthcoming auction for spectrum will have to acquire pan-India licence for Rs 15 crore. To acquire state-level licences, the bidders would have to pay Rs 1 crore.

HT Image

These are part of the conditions that are expected to be finalised by the Telecom Commission, the highest decision making body in the sector, on Friday. The government will start auctioning of spectrum for providing mobile telecom services from November 12.

This is for the first time that the spectrum is delinked with the licences. Earlier, all mobile licences were bundled with 4.4 MHz of spectrum in 1800 MHz band and 2.5 MHz of spectrum in 800 MHz band.

The government has also done away with categorisation of circles on the basis of revenue generation potential. Under the new regime, the companies will have to pay equal licence fee of Rs 1 crore for all states, except Jammu and Kashmir and North East, where the licence fee is Rs 50 lakh