The government is learnt to be preparing fresh plans to auction telecom spectrum that can fetch around Rs 39,895 crore.
The commission has disagreed with another key proposal -- that of allowing operators a deferred payment scheme after the auction.
The auction for the 5G spectrum is likely to take place around April-May next year, Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday. While relief measures announced in September this year for telecom operators marked the first set of reforms, the government will bring out a series of further reforms and "telecom regulatory structure should change in coming 2-3 years", Vaishnaw said. Speaking at the 'Times Now Summit 2021', the minister said India's telecom sector regulation has to be benchmarked with the global best, and added that "so, we will come with a series of reforms in this, such that the global benchmark of regulations is achieved in India".
The move is being considered after growing clamour from competing 4G operators for a level playing field in relation to Qualcomm.
The reference will also seek the court's view on a more fundamental issue: whether the judgement lays down auction as mandatory for allocation of all natural resources across all sectors and in all circumstances.
Recently, world headlines buzzed with Elon Musk's announcement that he was shelving his audacious bid for social media platform Twitter. Away from the media spotlight, questions are being asked about the maverick billionaire's plans in India, too. A few days ago, a Reuters report said Musk's flagship Tesla had put on hold its plan to launch electric cars in India.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is working on various alternatives to overcome the hurdles arising out of a lacklustre auction of 1,800-MHz telecom spectrum.
The court issued notices to the Law Ministry and the DoT, rejecting their contentions that the same cannot be issued against them as they were not the parties to the case.
A draft report of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament has expressed shock that Department of Telecommunication has no monitoring mechanism to verify authenticity of the self-certification of the operators, deprecating "such a mindless arrangement made by the DoT to check the radiation level."
According to sources, DoT has been asked to prepare a matrix of various levels of reserve price and spectrum usage charge at every Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) difference in descending order and the impact that would have on tariffs for end-consumer and the revenue accrued to the government.
The regulator has also agreed to the one-nation, one-licence proposal, which will make roaming free across the country. But it wants to decide the modalities of the issue.
The ministry wanted to use spectrum in the 700-MHz band for mobile TV services.
The government on Friday gave its analysis of the Supreme Court's 2G judgments saying it "travelled beyond" the established limits of judicial review and entered the exclusive domain of the executive when it held that the policy of first-come-first-served was flawed.
It will also file a review petition on Friday, which, while not challenging the cancellation of licences, will seek a reconsideration of the court's declaration.
The Department of Telecommunications is planning to give more powers to the telecom regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, in the new telecom policy, including the power to impose financial penalties on the erring telecom service providers.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said a strong domestic manufacturing base in electronics and telecommunications will mitigate burden of growing imports for the sector.
In a move that could pave the way for open auction of the 2G spectrum released from 122 cancelled operators, a draft Cabinet note prepared by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has recommended the spectrum price be discovered through an auction involving "existing players and new parties".
The auction of 2G spectrum might be delayed, as the government may file a petition in the Supreme Court for an extension of the timeline. According to current SC directive, the auction has to be conducted by August 31 this year. However, due to procedural delays, the department of telecommunications is looking at extending the timeline.
Following is the chronology of events in the 2G scam.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) expects to finalise the norms for mergers and acquisitions and spectrum sharing by the end of June. It also plans to approve the National Telecom Policy (NTP), 2012, by the end of July.
So far 2,06,024 pensioners have submitted DLCs.
The announcement quells fears among some telcos that Chinese players might be banned from participating in 5G trials and roll outs.
In May, Trai had gave its recommendations on a 'Spectrum Management and Licencing Framework', in which it had said that consequent to the merger of licences in a service area, the total spectrum held by the resultant entity post-merger shall not exceed 12.4 MHz for GSM technology, or 10 MHz in case of CDMA technology.
The recommendations on the subject will be sent in due course to the government, according to an internal communication of DoT
Local residents and even security personnel are using Nepalese SIM cards in border areas of Uttarakhand as no state-owned or private telecom company from India is providing services in the area, raising security issues.
British telecom giant Vodafone Group plc on Friday won an arbitration against the Indian government over a demand for Rs 22,100 crore in taxes using retrospective legislation.
The empowered group of ministers, headed by P Chidambaram (who has now taken over as the Finance Minister) has suggested a 20 per cent lower base or reserve price at Rs 14,000-15,000 crore (Rs 140-150 billion) for 5 Mhz of airwaves as against around Rs 18,000 crore (Rs 180 billion) recommended by sectoral regulator Trai for the auction of spectrum vacated after the Supreme Court order.
This will enable security agencies to tap any call, real-time chat and data without help from the operators.
The department of telecommunications has referred the issue of using multiple technologies under a single unified access services licence to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
DoT has stated in an internal note that the 3G roaming agreements between these three companies are tantamount to their becoming mobile virtual network operators, something not allowed under the current policy.
Historically, public sector units were conceived of under the assumption that they will control the 'commanding heights' of the Indian economy, which were necessary for rapid industrial growth but where private investment was unwilling to enter.
A senior official from the department of telecommunications (DoT) confirmed that Telcordia has been given 'conditional clearance' by the ministry of home affairs and MNP will be launched on January 20.
The government had set August 15 as the deadline for Canada's Research In Motion to provide the country's security agencies with the interception keys to enable real-time tracking of its popular BlackBerry messenger and corporate email services in readable format.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to indicate the formula used in international markets to fix the ratio between the reserve and the discovered prices of 2G telecom spectrum. Trai has assumed that the base price should be 80 per cent of that of the auction discovered price which is much higher than the internatioanl norm of 50 per cent.
To speed up the vacation of additional 2G and 3G telecom spectrum, the government will likely make a Rs 5,000-crore (Rs 50 billion) provision in the Budget for an alternative network for defence services. The spectrum released in lieu of that would increase the availability for civilian use.
Firms to pay Rs 24,700 cr if spectrum formula is accepted.
Earlier, the Telecom Commission, a decision-making arm of the Telecom Ministry, had recommended that the government pick up a majority stake in the special purpose vehicle created to execute the sale of surplus land lying with VSNL (now Tata Communications).
Says Airtel-Vodafone-Idea pacts violate licence terms; firms may move TDSAT.
