TRAI issues draft recommendations on ease of doing telecom business

telecom-tower-technologyTelecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released its draft recommendations on ease of doing telecom business.

Stakeholders can send their comments to ST Abbas, advisor (Networks, Spectrum and Licensing) at TRAI on the email ID advmn@trai.gov.in by 3 October 2017 and counter-comments by 10 October 2017.

TRAI’s draft recommendations

The process of SACFA clearance as well as grant of all licenses / approvals, that are issued by WPC, should be made paper-less and executed end-to-end through online platform.

There should be a defined time-line within which an Import License should be granted and the same may be declared in the portal as well as in the Citizen’s Charter.

TSPs should be allowed to reinstall / deploy their wireless equipment into another LSA after giving prior intimation to WPC preferably through the online portal. There should not be any requirement of taking prior permission of WPC for this purpose.

Applications for Demonstration License and Experimental License should be processed and the license should be granted within a maximum period of 15 days and 30 days respectively. This time period should be declared at the portal as well as in Citizen’s Charter.

The validity period of the Experimental (radiating) License should initially be six months, extendable by another six months.

When any merger proposal of companies as filed before the Tribunal is notified, representation/ objection by the Licensor on such scheme have to be made within 30 days. The Licensor should use this window of 30 days to file objections for the merger of licenses also. DoT should spell out a definite timeline, not exceeding 30 days post NCLT approval, for providing written approval to transfer/merger of licenses by the Licensor and it should be made a part of the M&A Guidelines.

The current provisions of M&A guidelines do not define a red-line for the market share of resultant entity in a service area. DoT should define a cap on the permissible market share of the merging entities taken together; beyond which merger proposal should not be accepted.

If a transferor company holds a part of spectrum, which (4.4 MHz/2.5 MHz) has been assigned against the entry fee paid, the merged entity should be liable to pay the differential amount for the spectrum assigned against the entry fee paid by the transferor company from the date of written approval by DoT.

TSPs should be charged for roll-out obligations test fee only for the DHQs/ BHQs/ SDCAs which are actually tested by TERM Cells.

There is a need to rationalize the structure of testing fee to avoid double payment for testing the same MSC. MSC test fee should only be charged once for all the towns served by the common MSC, which are being tested by TERM Cells under sample testing.

For an existing service provider, for renewal of license or migration of its license to UL, the condition of minimum net worth should not be applicable.

In respect of EMF compliance, DoT may review the need of calling biennial certification for all the existing sites of every TSP. TSPs should be asked to submit all requisite certifications only through Sanchar Tarang portal. TSPs should not be required to re-submit these certificates/reports separately in any other forms such as in hard copy or through email.

PBG for a particular phase of roll-out obligations should be released after successful certification by TERM Cell. If TERM Cell fails to submit its report within 12 months after the date of offer, PBG should not be held back on account of pendency of testing.

DoT should review the process adopted by CCA for the refund of bank guarantee and should ensure that CCA do not take more than 30 days for the release of bank guarantee. DoT should place an updated list of OSP registration holders with their validity of registration and place of OSP centre at its web-site.

DoT should device a matrix, linking the penalty to the severity of the incident and the number of occurrence of the violation for imposition of financial penalties.

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