Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Jan 27, 2007
ePaper
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Jan 27, 2007 ePaper |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home Page
-
Telecommunications Info-Tech - Regulatory Bodies & Rulings No extension of deadline for mobile subscriber verification Thomas K. Thomas
The Department of Telecom said that operators would have to pay Rs 1,000 for every user who have not been verified by March 31.
In a meeting with the industry on Thursday, the DoT said that operators would have to pay Rs 1,000 for every subscriber who have not been verified by the set deadline. The meeting was chaired by the DoT Secretary, Mr D.S. Mathur, and was attended by industry representatives, including Mr T.V. Ramachandran, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India; Mr S.C. Khanna, Secretary General, Association of Unified Telecom Services Providers of India; Mr Umang Das, Managing Director, Spice Telecom; Mr B.B. Anand, Vice-President, Reliance Communications and Mr Rajat Mukherjee, Corporate Affairs, Idea Cellular, among others. The Chairman and Managing Directors of the two state-owned telecom companies BSNL and MTNL were also present. The meeting was called by the DoT to know the views of the industry on a number of issues, including spectrum policy, quality of services and mobile towers near international borders. On the spectrum issue, the DoT said that the Group of Ministers was working towards enabling the Defence forces to vacate frequency for use by commercial mobile operators. The DoT informed that it would make a presentation to the GoM on spectrum policy soon. There was a difference of opinion between COAI and Spice Telecom on who should be getting the vacated spectrum. While COAI said that the existing operators should be given preference, Spice Telecom said that even those operators who have applied for new licences should be accommodated. CDMA operators raised the issue of allocating bandwidth in the 1900-Mhz for third generation services to which DoT said that an internal committee was looking into it. CDMA operators pointed out that mobile tariffs had crashed to the current levels only after their entry a few years back, and therefore, the Government should support their interests. The house was also divided on the issue of spectrum pricing. While Mr Ashok Sood of Tata Teleservices suggested that spectrum for even second-generation services should be priced to keep non-serious players out, COAI objected to it on the grounds that pricing would increase the cost of offering cellular services.
Quality of services
On the issue of quality of services, DoT directed BSNL to expedite the process of releasing points of interconnection to improve congestion levels, though private operators agreed that the state-owned company had quickened its processes in this regard. On allowing mobile towers near international borders, DoT assured that it would support the industry demands, though the Cabinet Secretary will take a final decision.
Related Stories: More Stories on : Telecommunications | Regulatory Bodies & Rulings | Security
Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page
|
Stories in this Section |
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | The Hindu ePaper | Business Line | Business Line ePaper | Sportstar | Frontline | The Hindu eBooks | The Hindu Images | Home |
Copyright © 2007, The
Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu Business Line
|
