TRAI's views favour old operators,govt to lose Rs 6,500cr:RCom

New Delhi, Feb 11 (PTI) Alleging that the new TRAI
recommendations on 2G pricing favours older players like
Bharti and Vodafone, Indian business group Anil Ambani-led
Reliance Communications (RCom) on Friday said the government
could face a revenue loss of nearly Rs 6,500 crore if the
views were accepted.
"TRAI's recommendations dated February 8, 2011 continue
to significantly and effectively favour the old private
incumbent GSM operators like Bharti, Vodafone, Loop Telecom of
Essar Group," RCom said in a statement.
"The recommendations, if accepted, will create a revenue
loss of nearly Rs 6,500 crore to the Government as compared to
the TRAI recommendations of May 2010, just about 9 months
ago," it added.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has
recommended fixing the price for 6.2 Mhz of pan-India start-up
2G spectrum at Rs 10,972.45 crore, more than six times the
present cost of Rs 1,658 crore.
TRAI has also said every Mhz of additional spectrum (on
an all-India basis) beyond the contracted limit of 6.2 Mhz
would cost a massive Rs 4,571.87 crore.
Most of the telecom firm, including Bharti, Vodafone,
Idea and state-owned companies like BSNL and MTNL, hold extra
spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz.
"TRAI, surprisingly, has recommended for charging excess
spectrum ie, above 6.2 MHz which is contractual spectrum only
for the balance license period, which is less than 5 years for
many players," RCom said.
This is against May 2010 recommendations for a minimum
period of seven years, again causing government a revenue loss
and large savings to old GSM operators, it added.
However, older telecom firms Bharti and Vodafone have
termed the recommendations as "flawed, illogical and
discriminatory" against the older operators.
"The sector has already been impacted greatly by the
illogical difference in treatment of GSM operators and so
called dual technology operators, the 2G scam as reported in
the media and the impact of the auction of (artificially
scarce) 3G spectrum," Vodafone Essar had said.
RCom alleged that these recommendations would widen the
non-level playing field between old and new GSM players and
adversely impact fair competition in the industry.
"These recommendations will further strengthen the old
private GSM players like Bharti, Vodafone, Idea, Loop to
maintain their market oligopoly on account of continuous
savings of capex and opex due to holding of excess spectrum
for free," it said.
RCom appreciated TRAI's re-endorsement of contracted
spectrum being at 6.2 MHz for GSM at par with other GSM
players and 5 MHz for CDMA players without any additional
payment upto the contracted spectrum. PTI SR
DBR


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