By IANS,
New Delhi : The Department of Telecom (DoT) is meeting all the operators Friday to get their final opinion on spectrum pricing ahead of the Empowered Group of Ministers’ (EGoM) meet next week.
“The secretary, DoT, has called all the operators this evening to take their views to discuss issues related to reserve price before the next EGoM meet,” a senior DoT official told IANS.
The EGoM at its meeting Thursday had before it the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI’s) presentation on the impact of pricing on tariff. TRAI has suggested that there would not be more than 10 paise per minute hike in the tariffs as a result of the proposed hike in reserve price.
The operators, however, have been warning of a 100 percent hike in tariffs if the TRAI proposal is accepted.
TRAI had recommended a reserve price of Rs.3,622 crore for 1 Mhz pan-India spectrum, which is around 10 times higher than the price at which 2G licences were allocated in 2008 under then Telecom Minister A. Raja.
The official also said that other crucial decisions which the EGoM would discuss include spectrum usage charge and the roll-out obligation.
The EGoM Thursday approved “in principle” the proposal to allow telecom firms to mortgage spectrum to raise funds from banks in order to buy airwaves.
Banks of late have been reluctant to lend money to the telecom firms without securitized assets as collateral.