Howrah News Service -  Latest news and headlines on Howrah,West Bengal and World: Centre to give away spectrum

Centre to give away spectrum
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ASIANAGE on 06 July, 2008 04:22:14
 
New Delhi, July 6: The government’s proposal to allow existing GSM operators
keep extra spectrum lying with them after levying a one-time fee may actually
cause a revenue loss of Rs 10,000 crore annually to the exchequer, say industry
sources.
According to sources, the department of telecom is considering to charge a
fixed amount for spectrum beyond the prescribed 6.2 MHz held by some of the
leading mobile operators.
Communications and IT minister A. Raja, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
last week, is understood to have briefed him about the proposal.
According to sources, the government gave the appro-val for one-time pricing
beyond 6.2 MHz of spectrum (radio frequency) in terms of enhancing the spectrum
fee by one per cent more of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of a cellular operator.
Cellular operators having beyond 8MHz of spectrum will be required to pay two
per cent more of the AGR, sources said.
These proposals would now be discussed by the telecom commission, a decision
making body of the DoT, before being implemented.
When contacted, some of the new mobile operators and a few CDMA players
criticised the proposal saying if implemented, this would leave no room for them
to expand their services in future in view of scarcity of spectrum.
Meanwhile, the industry said market friendly tariffs and a clear spectrum
policy should form the bedrock of Wi-Max policy to obtain its full benefit. —
PTI