Trai for licence fee cut to Rs 107cr

The Department of Telecom (DoT) is averse to TRAI's proposal on entry licence fee and revenue share reduction under Unified Licensing proposal because it feels the proposal would create a non-level playing field between the existing and new players.

DoT is of the view that the proposed entry licence fee cut to Rs 107 crore for unified licence to offer all kinds of services including telecom and broadcasting might create a disadvantegeous position for existing operators some of whom have paid over Rs 2000 crore as licence fee and litigation is likely to emerge out of this due to demand for reimburse.

Sources added that the department had not made any proposal to the ministry of finance in these areas.

DoT's stand is that with most of the major operators already rolled out or in the process of rolling out their networks throughout the country, it is unlikely that any new operator would apply for fresh unified licences to take advantage of these reductions. The service specific licensing regime will be permitted for two years after unified licensing is implemented, TRAI had said.

Recently Bharti took DoT to telecom tribunal for refund of its entry fee of Rs 135 crore for five basic service licenses, which it had surrendered to DoT after migrating to Unified Access Licensing.

TRAI had also proposed slashing the revenue share from 15% to 6% of adjusted gross revenue (AGR).

While expressing reservations to this proposal, DoT said while levies needed to be cut to lower the mobile tariffs and reach the government's target of 250 million phones by 2007, the current mobile rates were already much lower. The recent Access Deficit Charge cut had made long distance rates already lower.