Trai plans to issue licences without spectrum

In a consultation paper on draft guidelines released on Monday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said future licences should be given without any spectrum.

“Unified licence would be given without any spectrum. A licensee has to separately apply or bid for obtaining spectrum according to the prevailing policy,” Trai said in the draft guidelines. The regulator has sought comments from stakeholders on these.

According to the guidelines, a unified licence will have three levels — national, service area and district. The applicant can apply for any. It has also proposed a Rs 20-crore fee for a national-level unified licence, which suggests there would be only four kinds of licences across the sector.

“In the case of a service area unified licence or district unified licence, a company can apply in more than one service area or district,” Trai said.

The licence, the paper said, would come without any restriction on the number of entrants in a licence area. With such a unified licence, the licensor reserves the right to award or allocate licences to offer specific services like mobile number portability and such others services as may be recommended by Trai.

On November 3, 2011, the telecom regulator had informed the Department of Telecommunications that it would draw up the detailed conditions of a unified licence and furnish through an appropriate consulting process. In May 2010, Trai had recommended the current framework should be replaced by a new unified licensing regime.