DoT readies big-ticket changes in telecom policy

The department of telecommunications is considering sweeping changes in the country's proposed new telecom policy.

The department is planning a complete overhaul of the archaic Indian Telegraph Act.

Under the new telecom policy, DoT also wants to replace the rollout obligation clause for broadband operators with a new incentive scheme.

Other key proposals include re-farming of spectrum with operators for 3G and 4G and setting up of a telecom security council to oversee and audit all issues in this area.

The internal groups in DoT, set up to look into various aspects of the telecom industry and put together the new telecom policy, have given broad suggestions which will come up for final discussions before a draft policy statement is prepared.

The key takeaways of the suggestions include a road map, a time frame and broader guidelines to ensure availability of  800 Mhz spectrum by 2014.

At present, there is no clear road map on the requirement and availability of spectrum every year, which has forced telcos not to have a long-term plan.

The new scheme to replace the rollout obligation, a bone of contention between telcos and the government, will have service delivery objectives such as reducing licence fee if the service provider covers a specified area in quicker time.

In lines with highway construction through the BOT route, a public- private partnership model has been mooted for building optic fibre and broadband networks in the country.

DOT has also mooted a proposal that the government should also develop a mechanism to take equity stakes without controlling interest in companies which have indigenously developed high-quality telecom products but cannot finance them.

Under the policy of re-farming, while telcos with spectrum have to return it to the government which will then auction it for 3G

in case of scarcity, operators will get similar amount of spectrum in another band.

The re-farming policy has suggested three different models.

One, re-farming spectrum only after the expiry of the current licence, two restrict the licence period and re-farm or three re-farm after the end of the equipment's life time.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had suggested re-farming of telcos like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar amongst others which are in 900 band and utilisation of this for 3G.

Apart from charging licence fees for internet services in order to cash in on their future growth, the proposed policy also suggests the integration of UID and The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employement Guarantee Scheme (which guarantees rural employment) with mobile telephony.

It has been also suggested that there should be a national telecom infrastructure policy, which would specify uniform procedures for land acquisition, uniform taxation regime, extending of subsidies and encourage optimum sharing of towers.

It has also suggested that tower infrastructure should be bought in under the Telegraph Act and mobile telecom infrastructure should be declared as "critical infrastructure services".

And there should be a uniform right of way policy across states.

The internal group has also suggested that telecom services should be treated as public utility and industrial rate of power tariff should be applied.

Also 100 per cent utilisation of existing towers should be undertaken before new towers are approved in the same zone.

The internal groups looking at security issues have suggested that there is a need to make security audit of network mandatory and the setting up of a telecom security council for telecom security assurance, policy definition, auditing, certifications amongst others.