The government today made it clear that cellular operator Idea Cellular has to surrender its licence of Punjab and Karnataka to
enable the merger of Spice Communications with itself. Speaking to reporters in the sidelines of a conference in Delhi, department of Telecom secretary Siddharth Behura said: "Since both the companies are merging, Idea cannot hold two licences in the same circles. They have to surrender one" Behura also added that they will not be given a "refund" of the fees they have already paid to get a new licence in these circles were Spice already runs services. .
Behura also detailed out the process of auctioning for 3G and said that the agency which will be appointed for the auction process would be finalised soon. “We expect to sign our contract with the agency that will be selected for this process by September 30,.” Behura added.
Communications and Information Technology Minister A Raja, had announced the guidelines for the allocation and pricing of 3G spectrum on 1 August, 2008. According to the guidelines the ascending e-auction is to be conducted the details of which are to be notified later. The bidding would be conducted service area wise. Once the bids are submitted the successful bidders will be called in decreasing order of bids to make their choice for the which block they wish to be allocated.
Given the number of steps involved in the process the entire auction procedure is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Further Behura said, the implementation of the mobile number portability (MNP) services in India were on track, Behura said, “tender document for the vendors to invite the operators for the implementation mobile number portability should be out within a week.” “In a week's time, preliminary procedure for MNP seeking request for proposal (RFP) from vendors will be out,” he added.
As identified in the guidelines announced by the telecom minister, the bidders for the two MNP zones will be screened in the pre-qualification qualification round. Subsequently after the assessment on various parameters the two vendors will be finalised.
