Karthik R 246 Report post Posted February 6, 2011 New Delhi : Two leading operators, RCom and Bharti, have approached the government seeking to prematurely exit from the rural telephony scheme under the USO subsidy without fulfilling the commitment they had made by winning bids in 2007 to provide telecom services in villages. The government has an over Rs.14,000 crore corpus under the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund. All service providers contribute to this fund and it is used to provide subsidy to operators and infrastructure providers to set up operations and offer telecom services in rural areas. The Telecom Ministry is contemplating to ban the non-performing service providers from participating in the next round of bidding, to be launched soon. The administrator handling the fund is also planning to change the criteria in a way that operators and infrastructure providers were not allowed to exit without fulfilling their commitments and are offered subsidy accordingly. The government had invited bids in 2007 to create telecom infrastructure and provide services in villages and had offered subsidy as well, but the operators opted to go there without seeking subsidy or even offered negative subsidy (instead they offered to pay to the government) either to block other service providers from going there or because they over-estimated the potential in rural villages. When contacted, officials in the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund administration under the Telecom Ministry confirmed that Reliance Communications has less than 500 base stations active out of about 8,000 committed by them. Similarly, Bharti has also approached the USOF to exit from the scheme, officials said. "However, the requests of Reliance Communications and Reliance Telecom (both belong to Anil Ambani-led group) and Bharti have been turned down. There is no provision for service providers to unilaterally exit from the agreement on their own," officials added. Asked whether any penalty or liquidated damages would be levied upon the non-performing service providers, officials said, "An exit policy is being framed, but no final decision has been taken in this regard." Rural teledensity continues to be as low as about 26%, as against 69% penetration in urban India. Increasing rural telephony has been the government's priority and roll-out of any scheme may take all these factors into consideration while inviting bids for subsidy to be availed by the service providers to offer services in the rural areas. Courtesy : Economic Times Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
digitalnirvana 646 Report post Posted February 7, 2011 There should be fines levied. These are big operators and they are not willing to contribute to national telecom coverage growth. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kesav 127 Report post Posted February 7, 2011 I second it without even a second thought. National service obligation should not be allowed to be treated at the same level as their(Relaince's & Bharti's) board room chit chat. It's for the noble purpose of connecting under privileged Indians to the national stream. Let us pray and hope the actions taken against these defaulters will act as deterrent for future non serious USOF seekers. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kshah 452 Report post Posted February 8, 2011 They must be punished and bsnl must be provided higher icu charges from these operators so that they can provide telephony to small towns and villages. Urban population these dyas are subsidized at expense of modest villagers. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raccoon 53 Report post Posted February 8, 2011 RCom probably does not have the cash for it... lol! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karthik R 246 Report post Posted February 10, 2011 Hope the telecom ministry will take punitive steps Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KanagaDeepan 1,084 Report post Posted February 10, 2011 (edited) These bad boys should be beaten to death for they have NOT only moved a thing for country--village's welfare and they blocked two possible ones too, in this way... Edited February 10, 2011 by KanagaDeepan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
csmart 472 Report post Posted February 10, 2011 ever seen any corporate being fined for non fulfillment of commitment? here two major telcos, so govt has to bend in way that is favorable to them. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sgiitk 32 Report post Posted February 10, 2011 I am surprised since they both have excellent coverage in the rural areas also. With either you can travel across the country and not lose the signal. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
me_saket 73 Report post Posted February 10, 2011 Telecom policy getting tougher profit is shrining pay addtion expense above 6.2Mhz And unfavoured rule for Rural telephony. These make them wise decsion. But Rcom is doing to save thier legs in HIGHLY COMPETITIVE TELECOM indusry. bcoz thet are overburden by 3G aution and DEBT. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raccoon 53 Report post Posted February 10, 2011 (edited) Is it??? Please come and check out the situation here. When I was on RCDMA, there used to be no coverage/iffy coverage on many/most highways. My friends with GSM phones (esp. Idea) had good coverage at most places. I don't know if they have improved RCDMA coverage since then, but now with RGSM, many places I have visited out of town have no/poor coverage. And btw all these places I am talking about are covered well by other operators. AirHELL maybe just bit better wrt coverage only. Edited February 10, 2011 by raccoon Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
confused_follower 12 Report post Posted February 10, 2011 RCOM really lags in coverage in Maharashtra especially when you travel in coastal region (Konkan) but they have good coverage in many parts in country. Have experience of both traveling in Maharashtra & UP Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Karthik R 246 Report post Posted July 4, 2011 Telcos likely to get sops for better rural coverage The department of telecommunications (DoT) plans to offer incentives, which may include some kind of subsidy, to service providers for increasing mobile coverage in rural areas. “We are still working on it; it may take some time,” a senior DoT official told Business Standard. The broad idea was endorsed by the DoT’s internal panel in its report on the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) recommendations last year on spectrum management and other licensing issues. Trai had said service providers which had covered half the habitations in their licensed area with a population of 500-2,000 should get a reduction of 0.5 per cent in the annual licence fee. Those which had covered all such habitations should get two per cent off. However, DoT’s panel has not accepted this. Instead, it said there should be other ways of helping operators increase their coverage in rural areas. All telecom service providers contribute a fixed five per cent of their adjusted gross revenues as a levy towards a Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), used for providing affordable services in rural and far-flung areas. The government also allocates money for the USOF, set up in 2002. According to estimates, about Rs 6,000 crore is added annually to the USOF, the corpus currently a little over Rs 20,000 crore. The utilisation of funds has always been less than Rs 2,000 crore annually and usually only in providing access deficit charges to government-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. “Because of non-utilisation of the full USO fund, we are looking at other ways which will propel mobile players to increase the coverage in rural areas,” the official added. Trai says about 74 per cent of all villages have been covered by more than one operator. And, that only nine per cent of villages are not covered at all. Via : Business Standard Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
thackervijay 16 Report post Posted July 4, 2011 i mean even after all this subsidy, this two big giants still want to withdraw from this rather then utilising to its full strength.believe me there are more revenues then these companies think in rural areas. Also there should be some penalise system from TRAI if such companies doesnt work as per the norms and instead opt for withdraw. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
