Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued a pre-consultation
paper on a proposed exit policy for various telecom licence holders.
The move is expected to assist several telecom service providers who want to
exit from the business which is becoming more competitive in India.
Several new telecom license holders expressed their inabilities to run
business due to hyper competition.
“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.
In December, 2011, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) requested the
telecom regulator to recommend an exit policy for licencees of all types of
licences that wish to exit from provisioning of telecom services under a
licence.
TRAI 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 roll-out of Internet
services, they have the option to surrender the licence by paying 5 percent of
the Performance Bank Gurantee (PGB) as a surrender charge within six months of
notification, according to a PTI report.
All ISPs that have not rolled out services and want to surrender licenses
may be allowed to do so within six months from the date of notification by
paying 2.5 percent of the PBG as surrender charges.
By Telecomlead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
