Trai seeks industry views on exit policy for telcos

In a move that will pave the way for the exit of unsuccessful telecom service providers from the business, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today issued a pre-consultation paper on a proposed exit policy for various telecom licence holders.

"To solicit the comments and views from all the stakeholders on issues, implications... To the individual licensees, to the government revenues and to the telecom sector as a whole on the exit policy for various telecom licences, Trai has released a pre-consultation paper," Trai said in a statement.

The last date for submission of responses is January 16, 2012.

The regulator said the Department of Telecommunications had requested it in December, 2011, to recommend an exit policy for licencees of all types of licences that wish to exit from provisioning of telecom services under a licence.

The telecom regulator has asked for stakeholders' views on the proposed policy on surrender of spectrum by telecom players and if any refund should be made, along with other provision for the telecom exit policy.

At present, there is an exit option for Internet Service Providers (ISP), but not for other telecom licence holders.

ISPs who have already started Internet services and want to surrender the licence are permitted to do so without any surrender charges, provided they gives due notice to subscribers.

In the case of ISPs that have missed the deadline for rollout of Internet services, they have the option to surrender the licence by paying 5% of the Performance Bank Gurantee (PGB) as a surrender charge within six months of notification.

All ISPs that have not rolled out services and want to surrender licences may be allowed to do so within six months from the date of notification by paying 2.5% of the PBG as surrender charges.