Telecom Blog With a Difference
Department of Telecom (DoT) has issued a notice that permission to launch commercial service w.e.f. 1st Sept,2010 shall be given to those Licensees who are Mobile Number Portability (MNP) compliant. In addition, operators already having commercial services shall have to be MNP compliant too.
The Indian Telecom Sector is divided into 23 Service Areas consisting of 19 Telecom Circles and 4 Metro Service Areas for providing Unified Access Services (UAS).Unified Access Services operators are free to provide, within their area of operation, services, which cover collection, carriage, transmission and delivery of voice and/or non-voice messages over Licensee’s network by deploying circuit, and/or packet switched equipment. Further, the Licensee can also provide Voice Mail, Audiotex services, Video Conferencing, Videotex, E-Mail, Closed User Group (CUG) as Value Added Services over its network to the subscribers falling within its service area on non-discriminatory basis.
An Unified Access Services licensee can provide wireline as well as wireless services in a service area. Wireless services include Full Mobile, Limited Mobile and Fixed Wireless services. The licensee can also provide various Value Added Services . The Licence Fee shall be 10%, 8% & 6% of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) for Metro and Category `A’, Category `B’ and Category `C’ Service Areas respectively w.e.f. Ist April, 2004. The spectrum charges are levied separately.
The frequencies are assigned by WPC wing of the Department of Telecom from the frequency bands earmarked in the applicable National Frequency Allocation Plan and in coordination with various users. Initially a cumulative maximum of upto 4.4 MHz + 4.4 MHz is allocated in the case of TDMA based systems @ 200 KHz per carrier or 30 KHz per carrier or a maximum of 2.5 MHz + 2.5 MHz shall be allocated in the case of CDMA based systems @ 1.25 MHz per carrier.
