The Hindu Business Line : GSM operators challenge Government on spectrum issues

As a first issue, the GSM-based operators on Wednesday filed a petition against the Government alleging that the backhaul microwave charges have been increased arbitrarily by the Department of Telecom.

The Cellular Operators Association of India has approached the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal claiming that spectrum charges for backhaul transmission have been doubled without any consultation or discussion with the industry.

TDSAT has issued a notice to DoT seeking a reply within four weeks.

Backhaul microwave is used by cellular operators for carrying long distance calls.

While this was a fixed fee prior to New Telecom Policy 1999, it was converted into a revenue share after the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) operators took the matter to court.

However the charges paid by the GSM operators were lower compared to what the CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) operators were paying. This prompted the CDMA operators to plead their case with DoT.

In a bid to bring parity, DoT chose to increase the fee paid by the GSM players to keep the playing field level with CDMA operators.

The move peeved the GSM players who have now sought legal recourse after repeated requests made to DoT to review the policy. "Instead of reducing the charges paid by CDMA players, DoT sought to increase our charges that too without discussing with us,'' said GSM operators.

COAI is also expected to contest the higher spectrum charges being paid by the GSM players compared to their CDMA counterparts. While GSM players pay 5 per cent of their revenues as spectrum charge, CDMA operators pay only 2 per cent for the same number of users.

The third issue that has peeved the operators is the penalty imposed by DoT on unpaid spectrum charges.

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