Telcos clash yet again over spectrum fee

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 Telecommunications (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 is 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.