Himanshu Singh 19 Report post Posted July 7, 2008 Government's proposal to allow existing GSM operators keep extra spectrum lying with them after levying a one-time fee may actually cause a revenue loss of Rs 10,000 crore annually to the exchequer, say industry sources. According to sources, the Department of Telecom is considering to charge a fixed amount for spectrum beyond the prescribed 6.2 MHz held by some of the leading mobile operators. Communications and IT Minister A Raja, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week, is understood to have briefed him about the proposal. According to sources, the government gave the approval for one-time pricing beyond 6.2 MHz of spectrum (radio frequency) in terms of enhancing the spectrum fee by 1 per cent more of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of a cellular operator. Cellular operators having beyond 8MHz of spectrum will be required to pay two per cent more of the AGR, sources said. These proposals would now be discussed by the Telecom Commission, a decision making body of the DoT, before being implemented. When contacted, some of the new mobile operators and a few CDMA players criticised the proposal saying if implemented, this would leave no room for them to expand their services in future in view of scarcity of spectrum. A CDMA operator had earlier demanded that the extra spectrum held by mobile operators beyond 6.2 MHz should be returned immediately or it should be priced appropriately. As per a DoT policy, the start-up spectrum has to be given in a tranche of 4.4 MHz, but in many cases it has allotted 6.2 MHz. Most of the existing GSM players have been allotted 10 MHz or even higher in some of the circles based on the number of subscribers, as decided earlier. CDMA operators had earlier raised the matter with the DoT over what they call an in discriminatory approach of allotting extra frequency to GSM players. However, with sharp differences between the various players on how extra spectrum should be priced and allocated, the government has a tough task at hand in reaching a solution. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Honest 836 Report post Posted July 7, 2008 ^^^ My dear friend, this topic has already been posted in the below mentioned thread. http://www.rimweb.in/forums/index.php?show...&start=195# Please search the forum before posting a new thread. Regards. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
