India’s GSM industry body COAI – The Cellular operators Association of India, today said that the Government has suffered a loss of Rs.51977 crore due to owing to license and related violations by the Dual-Technology operators (Tata Docomo and Reliance) in the country.
COAI claims that Dual-Technology operators (GSM-CDMA) are in fact beneficiaries of a decision taken by DOT during the period September 2007 to March 2008. Decisions taken during this period have been held to be illegal by the Supreme Court in 2G verdict on 2nd Feb, 2012.
Further, allocation of dual spectrum (GSM/CDMA) during the said period tantamount to allocation of second license to these companies in the same service area which otherwise is not allowed as per cross holding restrictions. In our view, the spectrum allocated to Dual-Technology operators should be withdrawn and re-allocated through fair auction process.
According to COAI Dual Technology operators have also violated the rollout obligations, in accordance with the GSM spectrum allocated to them, as they were required to meet the same mandated by TRAI/ DoT for GSM services. These players are in severe non-compliance of the roll-out obligations even after almost three years of spectrum allocation – a serious issue deserving the same regulatory measures as is applicable to all other licensees/operators who were allocated GSM spectrum in 2008 and who may have failed to meet the licensed rollout obligations.
Additionally, in violation of the TRAI mandate that CDMA operators would have to acquire the requisite spectrum in the CDMA identified bands and pay auction determined prices, these operators are offering EVDO (high speed data) services on their existing spectrum, without paying the auction prices as determined by the 3G spectrum auction. This is a gross violation of the principle of “level playing field” and has caused an estimated loss of INR 14823 Crore to the Government.
The fact that Dual-Technology operators pay ongoing spectrum usage charges on a disaggregated spectrum basis as opposed to paying on a combined spectrum basis (as done by the GSM operators), causes a major loss to the government which can be estimated at about INR 26,000 Crore.
COAI further stated that there is no merit in the statement made by AUSPI in a letter to the DoT. Allocation of Spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz has been on the basis of a stringent subscriber linked criteria and is also in strict compliance with the license conditions. DOT has on affidavit in TDSAT and on the floor of the Parliament (both Rajya Sabha as well as Lok Sabha) consistently taken a position that no spectrum in excess of what was permissible has ever been granted.
saiesh February 25, 2012 at 11:34 am
I really hate the lobby created by this GSM players, i dont understand y they are so insecured when they have advantage over CDMA, the CDMA players are the major loser due to MNP, CDMA has its own limitation due to handset and data packs.
Really shame on these Biggies
Avishek Ghosh February 24, 2012 at 11:07 pm
@Sanjay…
Pls post the reports of AUSPI also….
Avishek Ghosh February 24, 2012 at 11:06 pm
Because these three looters are more than 10 yrs old….n they have got a big time to strengthen their n/w….but within few years MTS n Uninor done a great job….
Arun February 24, 2012 at 10:59 pm
Guys, get real. Some folks come in, offer cheap minutes and they become everyone’s favorites? You want quality, pay for it. No free lunch guys. Look at the losses of the new operators..you think they are here forever to give us cheap minutes and continue to make losses? Time we start getting real. Many of us are into running some start ups of our own. Do we run these to make losses? After all, what’s all this fuss about? 50 bucks a month? Wake up..
irfan February 24, 2012 at 9:54 pm
@bharathkumara thst true airtel and vodafone have the highest extensive coverage even more than the GOVT owned BSNL which is supposed to provide services to the poor rural areas
irfan February 24, 2012 at 9:51 pm
it seems now after the uninor and various other operators the govt is not planning to create further problems to reliance and tata docomo what govt is now considering as illegal to have dual technology these regulations were made by the govt itself some 5years back but now they want to extract more money from the telecos that why they are changing their policies so often my question is how come a technology being illegal when the govt itself once made the same policy to adopt the dual technology as in case of BSNL is also providing the same GSM and CDMA Services
bharathkumara February 24, 2012 at 7:47 pm
please take u r words back.. even airtel,vodafone, idea have coverage in rural, but still aircel, uninor, mts.. they want to cover rural areas, u can check any where in india.. airtel, vodafone, idea have network.. than other telecom
drkavint February 24, 2012 at 7:37 pm
@F1
agree.. but ****ing congress takes money from these looters to tighten videocon,uninor, mts.. who introduced 30p/minute…and are customer friendly..
i too feel price of call rate should go up, but data rates should come down..
sick of seeing people using mobile during self driving,bus,crossing road while talking… oops hate this..
also imagine the environmental loss.. i hardly could see birds,sparrows nowadays…
i wish gsm never existed in india..
feel india is the only country where prepaid is costlier than post paid , because of some cheating customers..
R R KUMAR February 24, 2012 at 7:35 pm
airtel, vodafone, idea are really costly and its true they don’t provide the best network.reliance cdma provides the best coverage and voice clarity. its indian too. and provides honest services.
F1 February 24, 2012 at 6:53 pm
Cancel the licenses of Airtel, Vodafone & Idea. These idiots are looting the Indians
Kanaga Deepan N February 24, 2012 at 6:50 pm
The axis of evil a+v+i can talk any sh!t to remove competition from the telecom field…
sAM February 24, 2012 at 6:44 pm
@Steve
D cartel trio thinks dat INDIA is their father’s nation..
I appeal to all KICK THOSE BL***Y out of d country..
bharathkumara February 24, 2012 at 6:37 pm
dear friends, even all of the new operator are installed the tover in old operator, then even new opertor are low tariff.. even they dont have even networks in rurals areas, even old operaters are covered the rurals areas, new operators are even cant able to cover the rurals.. y u guys still scold the old operator, new opeartor want time to cover.. thats y.. old operator have tariff hike.. even new operator have less tover.. thats y.. they are low tariff..
Steve February 24, 2012 at 6:19 pm
Tata and reliance paid nothing extra for their evdo.But still their evdo prices are very high
Saurabh gupta February 24, 2012 at 5:48 pm
See who is talking about level playing field after throwing uninor and MTS they are targeting tata and reliance so no competetion would be there and airtel vodafone and idea will decide the terrif this is evident from their existing plans all three have almost similar plans
their next target will be BSNL
Saurabh gupta February 24, 2012 at 5:43 pm
its all from the cartel of airtel vodafone and idea they want to through out every userfriendly operator and raise the terrif as they want in that way biggest obstacle is tata docomo and reliance so they are targeting them if that happens be ready to pay twice or even more then twice of existing terrif
sai February 24, 2012 at 5:16 pm
COAI is doing wrong in roaming issues and ill treating others by this worthless comments
MONU February 24, 2012 at 5:12 pm
+11111111111111@Praveen
Praveen February 24, 2012 at 4:57 pm
CDMA operators are providing EVDO based service in the same spectrum they were allocated as their technology permits it. GSM operators required an additional spectrum to offer 3G services., so what’s wrong here by CDMA operators. This seems to stab CDMA based datacards are their tarrifs are some what reasonable.