Three telecos served licence termination notices
07 Apr 2011
Three telecom operators, Aircel, D B Etisalat and Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL) have been served license termination notices by the government for failure to roll-out services across eight circles.
Most of the new players that were granted 2G licences in 2008 have failed to meet roll-out obligations with some under the scanner of investigating agencies including CBI and parliamentary panels.
According to a Department of Telecom (DoT) official in all, 17 notices had been issued for roll-out delays and the telcos include Aircel, SSTL-three circles each and D B Etisalat (known earlier as Swan Telecom)-two circles.
The operators now have 60 days to respond as why their licenses should not be cancelled for not meeting license conditions on network roll out.
Earlier, the issuances of 119 licenses had yielded Rs300 crore to the government in penalties.
SSTL, a joint venture of Shyam Group and Russia-based Sistema operates under the MTS brand. It has launched CDMA voice and data services across 22 telecom circles, with 10 million subscribers, but has received termination notices for the delay in rollout.
.jpg "RBI keeps repo rate unchanged as focus remains on inflation")
.jpg "Indian Oil, Panasonic team up for lithium-ion cell production in India")
