History of telecom licences issued in india
Telecom licences awarded so far
1992
Licence awarded to 8 operators in four metros without auction. Spectrum was allocated to Bharti, Sterling, BPL, Usha Martin, Max, Modi Telstra, RPG Cellular and Skycell.
Bharti was initially awarded Mumbai circle which was challenged by Tata telecom. As per the Court decision, Bharti was given the licence of Delhi Circle and BPL was given Mumbai.
1995
Two licences were issued for each of the 19 circles other than metros through auction. The final bids were for US $ 30 billion. The licences were awarded to Bharti, Birla AT&T, Tata, BPL, Escotel, Koshika, Reliance and Jasmine.
As the licence fee awarded during 1995 was very high and the operators were finding it difficult to pay up this amount, the Government decided to shift the fixed licence fees to a revenue sharing regime in 1999.
2001
After awarding the 3rd licence to BSNL / MTNL in all circles, Government auctioned the fourth licence and the winners were Bharti, Idea, Essar and Escotel.
2003
The Government awarded Unified Access Service Licence to fixed line operators like Reliance and Tata. Even though the GSM operators challenged this decision in the supreme court, the issue was settled outside the court by the GSM and CDMA operators. For getting the UAS licence, the CDMA operators paid Rs 1651 cr for the 23 circles.
2008
In 2008, the Government awarded licence to Etisalat, Uninor, Loop, Shyam Sistema, Videocon and S Tel and the licence fees were fixed at 2001 rates.
The CDMA operators like Reliance and Tata teleservices were given GSM licence.
The Indian Government is now reviewing its licencing policy due to the contraversies generated by its earlier decisions
Questions and Answers
Spectrum is a precious natural resource which is in great demand by the telecom operators worldwide. An effiicient, open and transparent spectrum pricing and allocation policy will ensure that the government realizes the best prices and at the same time the telecom operators use the spectrum in a most efficient manner. In a high growth mobile market like India, the Government needs to roll out the spectrum policy quickly to improve the quality of services offered by the telecom operators
The telecommunications system in India is the 2nd largest in the world. Teledensity has grown from 2% in 1999 to 54% in 2010. This growth has been contributed to the Government policies, support and liberlization of this sector. Intense competition has caused prices to drop and call rates in India are one of the cheapest in the world. This article summarises various important events in the history of Indian telecom.
The Indian telecom industry is the fastest growing industry in the world. However, during the recent period the industry is going through major crisis as the revenue is not growing and profit under pressure. This is due to the unprecedented cut throat competion and the resultant tariff war which the 15 operators are going through. Consolidation is inevitable and very soon we may expect the weak operators to leave the industry.
The Indian Telecom is at cross roads. While there is a great opportunity with huge customer acquisitions, 3G and BWA launch, the industry is besieged with issues like competition, low margins, declining revenue, high borrowing and interest etc.
India's mobile phone market is the world's fastest-growing and its nearly 700 million users trail only China, making it a must-invest market for any major global operator.
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There are many businesses that still a new traditional phone because it is routine to possess a number where your visitors as well as sellers can get to anyone with a central business office.
Though the majority of vanity numbers are toll-free, small business owners can also choose local numbers when it is applicable. In short, businesses who offer the public toll-free vanity numbers are three to four times more likely to receive telephone calls than those who do not.
Cheap international landline calls are out there. Get calls from 1p per minute to hundreds of countries around the world hassle free.
Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) is a set of ETSI standards specifying the infrastructure for a digital cellular service. The standard is used in approx. 85 countries in the world including India
The mobile subscriber base in India is 680 million out of which 68% of the subscribers are from urban areas and the balance 32% is from rural areas. The urban teledensity has reached 134% whereas rural teledensity is only 28%. As a result, the telecom subscriber growth in urban areas is now saturated and further growth can come only from rural India.
Cable TV industry is in India is at cross roads. It is facing huge challenges from new technologies like DTH and IPTV. Only option available for cable TV industry is to digitalize the network, which has already been mandated by TRAI. Even though it requires huge investments, it will take the industry to retain its lead in the cable and satellite communication.
The recently concluded 3G auction in India was a very successful process, which gave huge revenue to the Government of India, 3 times their estimates. Now the Government is planning to roll out similar auction process to other infrastructure projects as well
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