Telcos to pay 8% AGR as licence fee

The licence fee would be at least 10% of the entry fee

Under the unified licensing regime, telecom operators would have to pay eight per cent of the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) as licence fee, according to the final recommendation of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) committee on unified licensing. The licence fee, however, would be at least 10 per cent of the entry fee of the authorised service area concerned.

If a company acquires spectrum for any authorised service in a service area, the licence fee would be calculated on a “presumptive AGR” for that authorised service area, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the notice inviting applications of the auction of spectrum. For telecom operators who acquired spectrum in auctions conducted in November 2012 and March 2013, the presumptive AGR for access services would be five per cent of the bid amount of the company that won the spectrum for the service area concerned.

Under the unified licensing regime, internet service providers wouldn’t be allowed to sign roaming agreements with access service providers, according to the final recommendations of the DoT committee. As access service providers offer internet, as well as voice services, and interconnection between internet service providers and access service providers isn’t allowed, the committee had to include this clause.

In the unified licensing regime, in which telecom spectrum would be de-linked from licences, operators would be allowed to offer various services such as mobile, landline, direct-to-home and cable TV services by taking licences for the services they want to offer.

For access service, national long-distance and international long-distance service licences, the DoT committee kept a provision to impose a penalty of Rs 50 crore every time a licence holder violated terms in particular service areas. For internet service providers (category A and B) licences, the limit is Rs 1 crore; for other categories, there is no penalty, as bank guarantees would cover violations.