Telecom honchos meet PM, FM and Sibal

It was a day out for telecom honchos — Sunil Mittal, chairman of Bharti Enterprises; Anil Ambani, chairman of the Reliance – Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group; Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao; Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of Aditya Birla Group (Idea Cellular); and Ishaat Hussain, director at Tata Sons, representing Tata Teleservices — to meet top policy makers.

The telecom leaders started their day with meeting communications and information technology minister Kapil Sibal, followed by meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chairman J S Sarma.

They met Sibal at his residence, where differences over the 3G roaming agreements cropped up. According to sources who attended the meeting, Reliance said if 3G roaming agreements were declared illegal, the government should come out with a new framework for 3G inter circle roaming, so that there was clarity. However, Bharti, Vodafone and Idea stuck to their position that the services were not illegal and were allowed under the licence agreements.

The minister had called a meeting of all stakeholders to discuss the new telecom policy, spectrum pricing for excess 2G spectrum, rules for mergers and acquisitions and the 3G roaming issue.

Reliance has not given pan-India 3G services through roaming and has been waiting for clarity on the issue from the government. Tata and Aircel have tied-up to offer 3G services, but are also awaiting the government’s view.

All the leaders met the Prime Minister and the finance minister later in the day to discuss the same issue, apart from the new telecom policy to be unveiled in January. The department of telecommunications (DoT) has released a draft of the policy and is awaiting stakeholders’ comments to finalise it. Other issues such as high penalties — a maximum of Rs 50 crore for violations, being levied by DoT, and financing by banks to telecom players were also discussed.

The meetings came on the heels of a jointly signed letter by heads of Bharti, Idea and Vodafone to the Prime Minister, seeking his intervention in the dispute over 3G roaming pact. Else, they said they would have to surrender spectrum for which the government should pay back their money with interest and also the investment that they had made for building the network.

DoT’s internal units had termed the 3G roaming agreements between these three telecom players illegal and in violation of licence conditions and norms. Trai, too, had said it was a “violation of the terms and conditions of the licence”.

It also opined the action of the operators could have serious financial implications for the government. That is because operators could provide 3G services in circles where they had not paid for spectrum which was auctioned.

However, the operators claim that such a provision is allowed under the license conditions and was written specifically in the notice inviting applications (NIA) document for 3G auction. DoT, however, has said it will allow sharing of spectrum in the future, which will be a part of the new policy.

Through the roaming agreements, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular are offering services in the circles where they don’t even hold 3G spectrum. While Vodafone has spectrum in only nine circles, it offers 3G services to its customers in 20 circles. Bharti Airtel has 3G spectrum in 13 circles but offers 3G services in 20 circles. Idea Cellular has 3G spectrum in 11 circles but offers 3G services in 19 circles.