India to announce uniform telecom licence fee soon

The government said on Monday that it will soon come out with a uniform and single licence fee for telecom service provider, which is currently between 6 and 10 per cent of the revenue of these companies.

"The uniform licence fee will be shortly announced," Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura said at ISPAI function.

Although he declined to quote the figure, industry sources said it could be around 9 per cent.

He added that the government has in-principal agreed to the de-linking the spectrum from the licence as suggested by a internal telecom operator report. He said the Subodh Kumar Committee report of the Department of Telecommunications has suggested de-linking spectrum from the licence and the same has been sent to te Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for its view in a different context.

The telecom secretary said there is a possibility of giving 'conditional' licence to successful Wimax bidders as immediate availability of spectrum is not there. The DoT said the Department of Space has raised the issue of interference of the spectrum band, which it has been asked to release for Wimax auction, with its own satellite broadcast operations an it may take some to resolve the matter.