TRAI proposed a Fee of Rs.20 crore for a National-level Unified Licence

Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 16 January 2012 proposed a fee of Rs.20 crore for a national-level unified licence under the new regime, which suggests that there will be only four types of licence in future as against many currently available across the communication sector.

Telecom regulator's draft guidelines for the new unified licensing

The draft guidelines proposed three levels of unified licence — at national level, service area level and district level.
The entry fee for different types of unified licence is to be Rs.20 crore for national level, Rs.2 crore for each Metro and Acategory, Rs.1 crore for each B category, Rs.50 lakh for each C category service areas levels and Rs.15 lakh for each district level unified licence.

Telecom service providers at present hold Unified Access Service Licence (UASL), which authorises them to provide mobile, fixed line, Internet and long-distance calls and other telcom services.

The UASL is given to companies with 4.4 Mhz spectrum bundled with it. TRAI however, recommended that the new licence regime will not have spectrum bundled with it and the operators will have to bid for the spectrum separately.

The regulator also proposed to have no restriction on the number of players in a service area. Licence shall be issued on non exclusive basis, without any restriction on the number of entrants in a licence area.

TRAI proposed that the applicant company will have to pay one time non-refundable entry fee before signing the license agreement.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) also issued standalone licences separately, like the one for offering Internet services that are generally known by the nature of the service being offered.

Spectrum Management and Licensing Framework

TRAI’s guidelines follows recommendations on Spectrum Management and Licensing Framework, issued in May 2010, in which the regulator had recommended that the future licences would not be bundled with spectrum. It recommended that the licences to be issued would be a unified licence covering various access services, class licence covering VSAT services, licensing through authorisation and broadcasting licences