India’s GSM and CDMA operators including Tata Teleservices (TTSL), Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar strongly opposed and slammed Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)’s recommendation to charge incumbents telecom operators a one time fee for holding 2G spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz.
TRAI has proposed introducing a uniform rate of 6% as annual licence fee component of total adjusted gross revenues from 2014.Presently operators pay in the range of 6 % to 10% as licence fees.
Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) said TRAI’s recommendations are shocking and it has completely ignored our status as a dual-technology holder, and that TTSL should have been given precedence over those who have already received minimum start-up spectrum of 4.4 MHz and now have been recommended to get 6.2 MHz. It is important for TTSL to get level playing field vis-a-vis other dual-technology holders who got spectrum, especially as TTSL has already been waiting for more than 30 months for the minimum start-up spectrum across various Circles, including Delhi . We hope this will be rectified by the authorities soon and that our long wait for minimum start-up spectrum will not be pushed further behind.
India 2nd largest GSM Mobile service operator Vodafone Essar said “it was deeply concerned that Trai had deviated from a forward looking spectrum reform framework recommended earlier by DOT’s Expert Committee. While the DoT Committee recommended a forward looking and coherent set of proposals, the Trai recommendations have cherry picked dozens of incompatible elements and resulted in a set of proposals which are opaque, illogical and discriminatory.”
According to Mr Marten Pieters, Managing Director and CEO, Vodafone Essar, “The TRAI recommendations are full of even more charges, even more opaque spectrum allocation mechanisms and further complications. The telecom industry has seen very little revenue growth in the last six quarters, and has been impacted by unprecedented price wars. Against this context, it is extraordinary that it is now proposed that the industry should pay additional unjustified fees to be able to simply do what it is supposed to do deliver affordable quality communication services to Indian citizens.”
Bharti Airtel opposed the TRAI’s proposal on spectrum charges and stated “The recommendations are shocking, arbitrary and retrograde. “They overturn all existing policies of DoT for the last 15 years, recommendations made by various government committees and even TRAI’s own earlier recommendations. Besides, these are against all existing global norms for spectrum allocation and efficiency. It seems that the recommendations are designed to punish efficient and performing operators like us for contributing to the growth of Indian telecom sector and are instead tailor made to benefit select operators whose contribution to telecom growth and government revenues have been negligible.”
Tata Teleservices also said in a statement that “We strongly feel that the provisions in regard to a level playing field on the 2G spectrum for GSM and CDMA could have been bolder, vis-a-vis those holding spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz free of cost for so long, as also TRAI could have recommended more farrness with regard to policy recommendations on the priority listfor spectrum allocation.”
kaushik May 14, 2010 at 12:15 pm
idea is chota bhai of vodafone and airtel
balasaheb May 14, 2010 at 11:32 am
idea cellualr also opposed this
Prasath J May 14, 2010 at 10:22 am
Very TRUE… Only RCom is the most beneficiary in current stage, after the TRAI’s announcement… Tatas are also getting benefit, but as a side-effect the 2G spectrum allotment to them is further delayed by this announcement.. FYI, Tata applied for 2G GSM spectrum PanIndia, few days even before that of RGsm..
rajiev May 14, 2010 at 7:43 am
@emad
kuch nahi bas gandhi ji ke teen bandar ki tarah baithe rahna hai
emad May 14, 2010 at 6:08 am
what shud we hv to do?
Sandy May 14, 2010 at 1:26 am
Where is RCOM, they are happy bcoz they got all india spectrum for their GSM service. There is something between RCOM and telecom regulatory. This is the only company which got the spectrum to start their GSM service much before formal announcement of dual technology.
Therefor after waiting for 30 months, Tatas must get the spectrum to start their GSM services nation-wide.
ALL THE BEST TATA GROUP.
Manoj Prashant May 13, 2010 at 11:26 pm
Don’t compare with other countries please. Jis tarah India me customers ke paise kaat liye jate hain apni taraf se VAS de kar kya Europe ya America me bhi iss tarah hota hai? Every operator is looting the customers.
saket May 13, 2010 at 10:35 pm
RAJA’s game turning to be stronger day by day.
Hmmmmmm.
Has to do something
Merc May 13, 2010 at 10:30 pm
probably TRAI should put tiered revenue sharing, based on amount of spectrum they hold. this way govt can milk the company for much longer
rajiev May 13, 2010 at 10:02 pm
Idea cellular any idea about it?
Saptarshi May 13, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Has the trio completed the necessary with regards to infrastructure to launch mobile number portability? I heard these and a handful of other companies are responsible for the delay. Is this true?
sujai May 13, 2010 at 9:17 pm
@jaswanth roy
you are correct
government need to give all free for them but they wont pass it to their customers
kaushik May 13, 2010 at 9:14 pm
uchi log uchi pasand
Sourav May 13, 2010 at 9:07 pm
@ Max
Yeah….. It’s true & Govt. also going to ban Chinese Vendor company from where operators got the BTS, BSC, MSC at very low cost……….
So Govt. have to think on it………
jaswanth roy May 13, 2010 at 8:49 pm
These biggies in India made more money than anybody else in the other countries. They were simply fleecing the customers and made tons of money. Only when new players started offering lower rates then that too very reluctantly reduced their rates a little bit not for life time but for maximum 365 days and still waiting to roll back to their costly rates. It is always evident these biggies never pass their benefit of higher profits to customers, let at least the exchequer get their profits back for all along they have been enjoying low license fee.
Max May 13, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Even i feel tat operators shoud not be charged this much, First off all Indian telecom industry is the cheapest among all in the world & in recent years tariff has gone down further.. Now even the operators are facing dip in profits because of poor ARPU & high network maintenance cost. so TRAI don punish private operators in this way.
mekalwin T May 13, 2010 at 7:18 pm
only reliance welcomes these recommendations