Himanshu Singh 19 Report post Posted January 24, 2010 After a brief lull, mobile operators have begun clashing over the fee paid for spectrum (air-waves) with Vodafone claiming Tata Teleservices and RCom were underpaying the government - a charge denied by the two companies. "The allegation of the incumbent (Vodafone) is illogical, baseless, misleading and a blatant attempt to divert the focus from the real issue, which is that the incumbent and other players are hoarding spectrum beyond the contracted amount of 6.2 MHz and not allowing other players to start services in Delhi," a Tata Teleservices spokesperson said. Vodafone, one of the largest GSM operators, had said that service providers like itself and "Bharti pay the highest spectrum charges per MHz to Department of Telecom (DoT) compared to others... For example, the rate per MHz per quarter for Bharti and Vodafone for 7 circles is Rs 1.71 crore and Rs 1.37 crore respectively." "As compared to this the rate paid by Tata and Reliance in only Rs 0.27 crore and Rs 0.22 crore," Vodafone's Resident Director T V Ramachandran has said in a letter to DoT asking it to remove such distortions. The rivals, however, called the allegation absurd and said Vodafone has compared payment of spectrum usage for seven circles including metros and it would be very misleading to compare these circles where the incumbents have been operating for many years and have revenues far exceeding players like Tata Teleservices and RCom and other new players in the GSM mobile-platform space. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
