(10 January 2008 7:25 pm)

NEW DELHI: The government has accepted the recommendation of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) that no cap be placed on the number of access service providers in any service area.

As a result, the Department of Telecommuinications has decided to issue LOIs to all the eligible applicants on the date of application who applied till 25 September 2007.

Trai's recommendation came in the light of Unified Access Services Licence (UASL) guidelines issued on 14 December 2005 by the department regarding number of licences in a service area, following which a reference was made to Trai in April 2007.

UASL authorises licencees to roll out telecom access services using any digital technology, which includes wire-line and/or wireless (GSM and/or CDMA) services. They can also provide Internet telephony, Internet services and broadband services. In broader terms, UASL is an umbrella licence and does not automatically authorise the licencees to use spectrum to roll out mobile services. For this, a UAS licencee has to obtain another licence, i.e. Wireless Operating Licence (WOL), which is granted on first-come-first served basis subject to availability of spectrum in particular service area.

DOT has been implementing a first-cum-first served policy to grant UAS licences. According to this policy, an application which is received first will be processed first and thereafter, if found eligible, will be granted LOI and then whosoever complies with the conditions of LOI first will be granted UAS licence.