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Niti-Parichay #35: Recommendations by TRAI ON Differential Licensing in Telecom
Niti-Parichay #35: Recommendations by TRAI ON Differential Licensing in Telecom
Recommendations by TRAI ON
DIFFERENTIAL LICENSING
in telecom
SYNOPSIS REASON BEHIND THE NEW PROPOSAL
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Under the current framework, a Unified License is issued for providing all
(TRAI) released its recommendations types of telecom services in the country which does not create a distinction
on unbundling of different layers of between different layers of telecom such as infrastructure, network, service,
telecom through differential licensing and application
They will not be allowed to directly provide services to consumers under Unified License
These will be permitted to acquire spectrum through auctions and enter into spectrum trading
They will also be permitted to share their resources with telecom service providers
If a licensee with access service authorisation under the unified license wishes to migrate to a
segregated network layer and service layer regime, it will be allowed
License fees and spectrum charges applicable to network provider authorisation will be the same as
those for access service authorisation
EXPECTED FUTURE IMPACT AND OUR OPINION
• SIGNIFICANCE:
o Expected to promote investments, ease of doing business, and innovation in the sector
o Will enable sharing and optimum utilisation of telecom resources
• CONCERNS:
o Goes against regulatory consistency: It has already been opposed by operators like Reliance
Jio, Vodafone Idea, and Airtel
o May lead to investor uncertainty: Has potential to wreak unknown and unpredictable impact
on investments already made
o Increase compliance burden: As a converged licence like earlier, for network and service
layer offers clarity while the new framework is regressive in nature