Contending that the licence terms for cellular operators are far more lenient, the basic operators on Friday asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to do a complete analysis of parameters such as entry fee, roll-out obligation and spectrum allocation to arrive at a level playing field condition.
"It can be seen that the terms for cellular operators are far more lenient than those for basic operators and the playing field is actually tilted in their favour," the Association of Basic Telecom Operators said in a letter to Trai chairman Pradip Baijal.
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Raising issues like entry fee, rollout obligations and spectrum allocation, ABTO claimed that prior to the implementation of the new telecom policy 1999, basic operators had paid a higher amount as entry fee on an average per licence per year basis.
"We would request Trai that while formulating its consultation paper on level playing field, these issues may be kept in mind apart from many other level playing field issues which the authority is aware of," ABTO said.
ABTO said Trai should do a complete analysis to arrive at a level playing field between all operators in different categories of services and put an end to all kinds of disputes, which have arisen due to the non-existence of a level playing field.
"We look forward to a favourable consideration of our views and inclusion of these amongst others, which the authority would be considering in the consultation process," ABTO said.
On rollout obligations, it said the cellular players had lenient roll-out obligations, while the basic operators had more stringent conditions.
Taking up the issue of spectrum allocation, ABTO said the basic operators were allocated only 5 MHz total spectrum as against 10 MHz allocated to the cellular players.
"Even allocation procedures are inconsistent. Basic operators initially are allocated only 2.5 MHz and are given further chunks of 1.25 MHz upon completion of the first and second phase of their roll out obligations whereas cellular players get 4.4 MHz/6.2MHz (for fourth operator) in the initial allotment and get additional chunks of 1.8MHz on a need basis," it said.