DOT - SEA OF APPLICATION

Finding it difficult to scrutinise a sea of applications for telecom licences, the government is contemplating issue of letters of intent (LoIs) to all applicants and ask them to pay a fee of about Rs 1,650 crore (for pan-India operations)  without giving any time-frame for the allocation of spectrum.

A LoI is a document outlining an agreement between two or more parties before the agreement is finalised.

This would not only help in sifting through applications, but would also help in keeping non serious players out of the fray, sources said.

They, however, said that a final decision in this regard would be taken soon.

The telecom commission has met several times to deal with the situation and has forwarded comments to telecom minister A Raja for finalising the policy.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has received over 570 applications from companies, including AT&T, Ispat Industries promoters Mittal brothers, Hindujas, HFCL, Shyam Telecom and a host of reality players such as DLF, Parsavnath and Unitech.

DoT's decision last week to grant permission for using dual technology -- CDMA and GSM -- for mobile services has irked the existing players, with Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) likely to challenge the decision in sectoral tribunal TDSAT.

The decision to issue LoIs may hurt existing players further.

COAI, when contacted, however, declined to comment on the issue.

The association has also opposed DoT's decision to accept the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's recommendation of enhanced subscriber-linked criterion for spectrum allocation as with this most of the existing players would not be eligible for additional spectrum.