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| Uninor wants Rs 1,658 cr as base price for 2G auction |
| BS Reporters / New Delhi Feb 11, 2012, 00:36 IST |
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Telecom operator Uninor has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to fix Rs 1,658 crore as the base price for reauction of 2G spectrum and to restrict to players whose licences have been cancelled and new firms rather than the incumbents.
“The last discovered price was Rs 1,658 crore and this should be the reserve price now,” Uninor said in its comments on Trai’s consultation paper for framing new rules for 2G spectrum auction.
The auction should generate prices which could form a basis for fees payable by those who have not paid “market prices” for their current spectrum, which means all licencees who received their licences after the fourth cellular operators (2001), when the “market prices” were last determined.
Last week, the Supreme Court had ordered cancellation of 122licences issued in January 2008 by then telecom minister A Raja, who is now facing trial.
The apex court had also directed Trai to frame new rules for licences and auction of 2G spectrum. Subse-quently, Trai had asked for comments from all stakeholders to frame the auction rules till February 15.
The companies whose licences were impacted following the SC order were Uninor, Sistema Shyam, Loop, Videocon, Etisalat DB, S Tel, Idea and Tata Teleservices.
Uninor, a joint venture between Norway’s Telenor and Unitech Group, said the auction should be in two phases – first for commercial blocks of 6.2MHz each for fresh licences and then for capacity expansion for all operators.
Managing Director Sigve Brekke said the company was here to keep the promise of competing and ensuring affordable rates for all customers. So, the auction should preserve competition in the Indian market and the principles of equality, fairness and transparency must be followed, he said.
Last week, Uninor had said it would participate in the auction but cannot assure whether it would succeed and thus kept the option to exit open.
Telenor also wrote off $721 million worth from the Indian business.
The foreign telecom firm claims to have invested over Rs 14,000 crore in India to buy equity and on rolling out services across the nation.
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