New Delhi: India to further liberalise telecom sector

Forwarding its recommendations to the department of telecommunications and the ministries of communication as well as information and broadcasting, TRAI made suggestions on policies that should govern the licensing framework for access service provision.

The proposals followed DoT's reference to TRAI on key issues like entry regulation in access service market, review of guidelines on merger and acquisitions, including the provisions relating to cross holding of a licensee company in the same service area, use of combination of technologies (CDMA, GSM and/or any other) under the same license and roll out obligations.

On mergers and acquisitions, the regulator said the market share of the merged entity should not exceed 40 per cent either in terms of subscriber based or revenue. At present, this cap is at 67 per cent. TRAI also raised the cap on equity capital from 10 per cent to 20 per cent up to which a telecom player can acquire stake in another telecom firm in the same service area.

On the issue of access providers using a combination of CDMA and GSM technology, TRAI said the existing license should be permitted to provide services through either of the technology, subject to certain conditions.

- By News Desk

The Statesman

Publication Date: 30-08-2007