Mobile phone companies that win spectrum in the upcoming 2G airwaves auction will receive unified licences at the circle level and will be allowed to migrate to the full unified licensing regime by December, according to telecom ministry.
This will provide clarity to interested applicants, especially Reliance Industries’ Infotel Broadband that has a pan-India wireless broadband access licence and is learnt to be interested in participating in the upcoming airwaves sale.
Representatives of the company had sought clarity from the telecom department in the pre-bid conference last week on the type of licences that will be given after the auction.
Details of migration to new licences will be worked out by December, by the time the auctions conclude. The broad terms will be part of the notice inviting applications(NIA), the legally binding document that lays down the rules and regulations of the auction, which will be issued on September 28.
Unified licences allow a telecom company to offer any kind of service as against the current norms where operators need separate licences for each type of service, such as GSM, CDMA, 3G, broadband wireless (4G), Internet, direct-to-home (DTH) and radio.
