Relief for RCom, Tata Tele as licences not to be scrapped

DoT accepts legal counsel that their dual technology licences given before Jan 2008 were not covered by last year's SC quashing order

In a major relief to the dual technology (those offering services on both the GSM and CDMA platform) telecom licence holders, Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications (RCom), the department of telecommunications (DoT) has decided their licences will not be scrapped.

The decision is based on the legal advice of senior advocate P P Rao, consulted by DoT on the matter. This was after various groups, including industry body Assocham, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), and Idea Cellular managing director Himanshu Kapania, insisted the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) order in February 2012 that cancelled 2G licences, should lead to quashing of 141 Unified Access Service (UAS) licences, instead of only 122.

LINE CLEARED

• SEP 2007: Telcos, including new entrants like Uninor, Loop Telecom, Etisalat DB, Videocon, STel, SSTL, apply for 2G licences
  CDMA player Tata Tele seeks GSM permit on existing licences
• JAN 2008: DoT issues two press releases - one allowing new entrants and the second allowing dual-technology players to offer GSM services
• FEB 2012: Supreme Court quashes 122 licences issued to private companies on or before January 10, 2008
  
  Various groups say 141 licences, including the 19 of Tata Tele, ought to have been cancelled
  COAI says 163, including RCom's 22 licences, should be scrapped
  DoT seeks legal opinion
• JUN 15, 2013: Senior advocate P P Rao says in a legal opinion that the SC order does not include quashing of licences of dual-technology players
• JULY 8, 2013: Competent authority accepts PP Rao's opinion

Minister of communications and information techno,ogy Kapil Sibal has accepted Rao’s opinion. According to a recent communication, DoT will soon inform all the groups about it.

Tata Teleservices holds 19 such licences and R-Com has 22 across the country.

At present, Tata Teleservices offers CDMA services in 19 telecom zones and RCom’s CDMA service is available in all 22 circles across the country.

According to the communication, Rao, in an opinion dated June 15, accepted by the ‘competent authority’ on July 8, has said there were two sets of applicants. The first set was of companies that had applied for UAS licences till September 25, 2007. The second was of existing licensees, seeking approval to use dual technology spectrum.

Accordng to Rao, the SC judgment had not mentioned cancelling of the approval given for use of dual technology spectrum to the entities which had been given licences before the issuance of two press releases on January 10, 2008. The allocation of spectrum quashed by the SC was limited to the cancelled licences. The existing licensees were not to be affected, as their licences weren’t cancelled or their spectrum quashed, it added.