Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has set up a high level committee under deputy director general (CS) to segregate revenues earned by an operator from broadband wireless access (BWA) services and from other services. This is due to the reason that BWA services attract spectrum usage charge (SUC) of one per cent of revenue, while 2G services attract an SUC of 5 per cent.

 

This five member committee will have DDG access services and telecom engineering centre officials as its members.

 

The department has also asked this committee to submit its report by May, 15. For this, DoT has also asked Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel to provide all details and has asked to cooperate with the committee for ensuring satisfaction to the licensor.

                                             
 

If the committee is able to finalise the mechanism to segregate revenue from 2300 MHz band and 1800 MHz band, it will help both Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel to keep SUC at 1 per cent.

 

Earlier EGoM on spectrum pricing had recommended that a committee be set up to segregate the revenue from various usage of spectrum.

 

The Attorney general had also opines that it is not possible for the government to change contract with Reliance Jio retrospectively.

 

Apart from this, the department of telecom (DoT) has made provision in the access services license that in the event of holding and utilizing BWA frequencies in 2300 MHz spectrum band the license shall report the usages of frequencies & the revenue earned. The system should be in place within 6 months for independently monitoring and verifying such revenue by the licensor to its satisfaction, falling which appropriate action shall be taken by the licensor.