COAI blasts new norms for telecom licences

14 Oct 2013

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The Cellular Operators Association of India, which represents India's telecom service providers on the CDMA platform, today described the new rules related to telecom licences as "coercive in nature", and indicated that the unilateral imposition of the norms on established telecom operators could lead to legal disputes.

Referring to migration rules framed in 1999 under the then telecom policy where operators were given the choice to shift to new permits, COAI said this very principle has been ignored while framing the new rules.

"Provisions of migration to Unified Licence (UL) are coercive in nature... as the UL guidelines require compulsory migration to UL in several circumstances, which infringe on the rights of our member operators to do business under the existing contracts/ agreements signed with the DoT," COAI director-general Rajan S Mathews has said in a letter to the Department of Telecommunications.

The new licences do not differentiate between 2G, 3G or 4G technology and allows companies to use any technology for providing mobile and other telecom services in service area where they have airwaves.

Lcences of Bharti Airtel in Delhi and Mumbai and of Vodafone in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata are due to expire in last quarter of 2014; after which under the new rules they will have to take fresh licences for continuing their operations in these service areas.

COAI says the DoT should keep current guidelines for the grant of Unified Licences issued on 19 August in abeyance, and refer the matter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for review.

"The guidelines should be finalised by DoT only after prior detailed discussion with the licensees in an open house discussion with the minister [Kapil Sibal] and the comprehensive review of the issues on UL by TRAI," Mathews said.

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