New Delhi:
Amid the 2G controversy, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal is expected to deliberate on issues ranging from spectrum sharing, merger and acquisition, annual spectrum usage charge and rising disputes among the telecom firms at a meeting with top officials of operators today.
"The Minister will be holding a round table conference on issues related to spectrum management and licensing framework with key stakeholders," said Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in its communication to telecom players.
According to agenda of the meeting, the minister is likely to hold consultations with stakeholders to evolve a clear and transparent regime covering licensing, spectrum allocation and other issues in the telecom sector.
The recommendations given by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on spectrum management and licensing framework which earned criticism from most of leading telecom players is going to be the centre of deliberations at this conference.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel in its statement had said recommendations are against the stated principle of the Government to offer affordability, fairness and level playing field.
Reliance Communications, on its part, has alleged that TRAI's recommendation favoured old operators.
It said if the recommendations were accepted it will cause government a loss of Rs 6500 crore.
During the conference, Sibal will discuss delinking of spectrum from licensing of access service in future and renewal of licences, among other things.
It will deliberate on the issue of separate payment on the value of spectrum and allocation of spectrum upto the maximum prescribed limit on renewal.
Sibal has proposed discussing replacement of existing roll out obligations with the roll out coverage based on habitation.
Recently 119 new telecom licence holder in various circles have been penalised for missing out on their roll out obligations.
There are several licences that Telecom Regulator has asked DoT to cancel for failing to meet roll out obligations.
DoT has sent TRAI's recommendation to law ministry and is awaiting its consent to initiate further action.
The telecom minister will also discuss mergers and acquisition issues like relevant market share, minimum number of operators post-merger, spectrum pricing on consolidation and spectrum transfer charge.
Along with various spectrum related issue, the proposal to bring telecom infrastructure provider (IP-1) under licensing framework would also be part of the deliberation.
Introduction of new category of internet service providers under district level jurisdiction will too come up for discussion during the meeting.