Mittal junks unified licence in present form

Bharti Group chairman Sunil Mittal on Tuesday said the unified licensing regime proposed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India could not be pursued in its present form, as it was in contradiction of the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal judgement, which talked about the service specific licences.

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"I personally believe that in the face of TDSAT judgement, the unified licence in its present form cannot go forward. The TDSAT judgement clearly says that there are service specific licences," he said after emerging from a meeting -- with IT and Communication Minister Arun Shourie -- which Mittal described as "a regular meeting."

Citing the judgement, he said the main thing that was mentioned there was that "basic shall do basic and cellular shall do cellular, and the first question that unified licence asks is how and why and when can we allow fixed line to do mobile."

"So to my mind, post TDSAT judgement, in its present form, unified licence should not be brought forward," he said, adding that the proposed regime was in contradiction of the
TDSAT judgement.

"I don't think Trai has the jurisdiction to ask the question whether fixed can do mobile," he said.

He however clarified that Bharti had not given any view to the telecom regulator on the unified licensing paper floated by Trai.

On the issue of cellular operators' seeking implementation of the TDSAT judgement, he said, "There is still 60 more days to go till you can take any further action. It's one month since the TDSAT judgement has come. I am hopeful that the government will come out in a very clear position on this."

"The government is not saying that it would not implement; it has not said in so many words. I think we need to wait for the final position on this."

On Trai's consultation paper on the level playing field as directed by TDSAT, he said, "As far as Bharti is concerned, we are not participating in that process. COAI would be doing it."

"The TDSAT direction is very clear that the mobility should be limited to an SDCA but even with that if there is an infringement upon the rights of the cellular industry and to that extent, there should be some fee charge," he said, adding Trai must recommend a fee to be charged for limited mobility to create a level playing field.