Corporate affairs ministry note for ministerial group says can't keep banking, telecom out of CCI purview as RBI, Trai enable but not regulate competition
The New Telecom policy 2011 and the Spectrum Act are expected to address these concerns.
Newer telecom operators and dual technology entities are opposing the department of telecommunications (DoT)'s decision to ask the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to give its view on whether the price of spectrum being offered in the coming 2G auction should be valid for 10 years instead of 20 years.
Says action taken following Supreme Court order, not because of government decision
Following is the chronology of the events in the 2G spectrum allocation scam in which the prime accused and former Telecom Minister A Raja was on Tuesday granted bail:
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.
Qualcomm had received its internet service provider licence last month, after a delay of 18 months, with a validity period of 20 years after a Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal direction to DoT.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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 Telecom on Tuesday approved applications of telecom companies -- Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and MTNL -- for conducting 5G trials but none of them will be using technologies of Chinese entities. The list of telecom gear makers approved for trials include Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, C-DOT and Reliance Jio's indigenously developed technologies.
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.
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.
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".
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.
After BlackBerry, the government has included a whole host of services, including video chats offered by telecom players, Nokia's push email service and Skype, into the ambit of security issues.
Department of Telecommunications has reportedly blocked the popular website.
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
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 Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case against three private cellular companies and former officials of the telecom department for alleged irregularities in the grant of additional 2G Spectrum and causing a loss of Rs 508 crore during the period 2001-2007.
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.
Instructions of the personal secretary to the minister were taken as instructions of the minister himself.
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 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.
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.
Tier-II and tier-III towns have a reason to rejoice.
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