Even as basic and cellular operators have been unable to reach an agreement on the contentious limited mobility services, the two sides have now approached Communications Minister Arun Shourie for continuing dialogue on issues such as spectrum.
"There are some issues besides limited mobility where basic and cellular operators have given a joint presentation and said they want to continue their dialogue," Shourie told reporters on the sidelines of an Assocham seminar on biotech.
While admitting that there was disagreement amongst players on limited mobility issue, Shourie said operators have expressed willingness to meet on issues like spectrum.
"Defence is using a lot of spectrum while telecom also needs spectrum. Naturally, defence is very important, and therefore aspects like how defence equipment can be mordernised, or how signalling equipment can be modernised have to be considered," Shourie said adding he was in touch with wireless advisor and signalling officer in defence and a paper was being prepared on this.
Shourie said controversies in telecom were due to the fact that licences were service specific, while technology allowed different services and the solution lay in giving licences based on spectrum.
"But as licences are now service specific, making them spectrum-specific all of sudden could lead to a chaos," he cautioned.
Suggesting that a universal licence scenario can be thought of in the next three years, he said in transition regime issues such as compensation and methods for spectrum auction would need to be considered.