TRAI recommendations to be examined by Telecom Commissions

The Telecom Commission, the policy-making wing of the Department of Telecom, met on Friday to discuss regulator TRAI's recommendations on licensing reforms including pricing for the additional mobile (2G) spectrum.

Official sources said the Commission examined all the proposals and the draft policy made by the DoT's internal committee. There was consensus among the Commission members on the decisions of the draft prepared by the internal committee. The Commission will again meet on Monday to have further discussions on the same.

The Telecom Commission's decision is not final unless approved by the Communications and IT Minister, they said.

Although no confirmation was available on the exact proposals of the internal committee, sources said on capping of the number of players, the decision is to go by TRAI recommendations of having unlimited number of operators.

But on the crucial 2G additional spectrum allocation pricing, there were various point of views -- raising the revenue share for each additional MHz of spectrum, enhancing the number of subscribers for giving additional spectrum and the entry fee to give spectrum over 10 MHz and 5 MHz for GSM and CDMA operators.

Operators currently pay certain percentage of their revenue as additional spectrum charges. The current policy for giving additional spectrum is subscriber-linked.

Other recommendations by TRAI include on merger and acquisitions where the subscriber base of the combined entity is to be reduced to 40% of the given market from the current 67%, allowing dual GSM and CDMA technology and a licensee being allowed to hold up to 20% in another telecom company in the same circle.