Telecom companies may have presented a unified front to the Government to seek a bailout package, but there are still major issues related to spectrum and licensing on which there is no consensus.
This includes the quantum of spectrum given as start-up air waves and terms for licence renewal. While the three incumbent GSM operators — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular — are in favour of pegging the start-up spectrum at 4.4 Mhz, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices want this to be at 6.2 Mhz. The other major issue that's dividing the industry is the issue of spectrum re-farming wherein the three GSM players want to retain 900 Mhz band with them while the others want this band to be re-farmed and put up for auction.
This has been referred to in the letter written by the five telecom honchos to Communications and IT Minister Mr Kapil Sibal. “There are other important issues relating to spectrum, licensing and contractual matters on which the operators are currently engaged in a constructive dialogue and we expect to come back to the Government,” stated the letter.
Some Agreement
The letter, signed by Vodafone Group Chief Executive Officer Mr Vittoria Colao, Bharti Airtel Chairman Mr Sunil Mittal, Reliance-ADA Chairman Mr Anil Ambani, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Mr Kumar Mangalam Birla and Tata Sons Finance Director Mr Ishaat Hussain, was presented to Mr Sibal last Wednesday. While the letter said that the industry had agreed on 12 issues, there was no consensus on the crucial spectrum and licensing issues.
“Most of the issues which they have agreed to are non-controversial, like uniform licence fee, incentive for rural rollout and easy mergers & acquisition norms. The differences on key issues like dual technology still persist,” said an industry source.
“The unified stand has been taken on a political level after the Telecom Ministry asked operators to come together with their problems instead of coming one by one,” said a Government functionary.
On Wednesday, the heads of five telecom companies met the Prime Minister and a number of other Ministers in a bid to get some relaxation from the Government.
The last time the industry shared a common platform was in 2003 when the then Communications Minister Mr Arun Shourie thrashed out a consensus to end the logjam over the decision to allow CDMA technology.