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| EGoM to decide on reserve price |
| Thursday, 21 June 2012 | |
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With barely two months to go for the Supreme Court deadline of August 31 to conduct the 2G spectrum auction, the empowered group of ministers is meeting today to take a decision on the issues of reserve price, rollout obligations, spectrum mortgage, spectrum usage charges, and deferred payment. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is scheduled for making a presentation on how the reserve price proposed by it will impact the telecom industry and the mobile users. The regulator-recommended reserve price of Rs 18,110 crore for 5 MHz of spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band had kicked a storm as the industry vehemently opposed it, arguing it would sound death of cheap voice telephony in the country. Consequently, the telecom commission had asked the regulator to submit a detailed analysis of the impact this reserve price to the EGoM which would then fix the reserve price. On the issue of spectrum mortgage, while the department of financial services in the finance ministry has proposed that banks be allowed to resell the mortgaged spectrum in case the telecom operator fails to meet its financial obligations towards the bank. The EGoM headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will decide whether the department of telecom should be mandated to do so, while roping the lending institution into the process since spectrum involves complex regulatory issues, reported the Financial Express. It will also decide whether to tweak the existing rollout obligations. One of the options is that only new licensees be subjected to existing rollout obligations since the incumbents who win any incremental spectrum in the auction would have already met them. Secondly, all spectrum winners be mandated to cover 20 percent of the block headquarters of the license service area within two years from the effective date of assignment of spectrum with an additional 10 percent of the same area being covered in the third year. Instead the operators presently have to cover 10 percent of the district headquarters within the first and another 20 percent within the third year. –Communications Today Bureau |
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