Key officials of top three telcos to meet DoT secy on temporary service disruption issue

Vodafone, Airtel, Idea users in Delhi and Kolkata may face service glitch as telcos miss deadline to re-configure networks

In a bid to avoid any disruption in mobile services in Delhi and Kolkata circles, key officials of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, the top three cellular operators in the country, will meet Rakesh Garg, secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Friday.

Following the delay in allocation of spectrum that operators have acquired in February this year, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India have sought extension of time to reconfigure their networks. They have received the spectrum earlier this month. However, this was rejected by the DoT. The operators asked for additional time as licences will expire in November. If the network reconfiguration is not completed before that date, consumers will face temporary disruption in services.

According to operators, the reconfiguration of networks will take about six months. "The government should not take a decision so that consumers would suffer. Reconfiguration is required as allotted spot frequencies are different from what was earlier within the same band," said Rajan Mathews, director general, Cellular Operators Association of India that lobbies for the mobile operators in India.

On the other hand, the DoT has rejected the plea of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone as allowing additional time would effectively extend the licence terms beyond 20 years. But, industry experts say the DoT can always offer temporary licences to the operators to continue services using the spectrum they have been using for these many years, until the reconfiguration is complete. "There is a provision in the regulatory guidelines," noted a senior regulatory expert with a telco.

"We expect that the meeting would be fruitful and both the parties will amicably resolve the issue so that consumers do not suffer," said Mathew.

A temporary disruption would effectively hit about 30 million users in Delhi and Kolkata. Bharti Airtel has 15 million subscribers in Delhi and Kolkata while Vodafone India has about 14 million customers at the end of August 2014.

Also, operators have acquired less quantity of spectrum in these circles in the February auction. In the 900 MHz band, Bharti Airtel bought 5 MHz of airwave, while it had 8 MHz earlier. And Idea Cellular is a fresh entrant in the circle. In Kolkata, Airtel bought more, but Vodafone managed to get less.