UPDATE: India Regulator Seeks Initial Views On Bandwidth Auction
February 03 2012 - 8:57AM
Dow Jones News
India's telecommunications regulator Friday invited by Feb. 15
initial views on framing rules to auction bandwidth for basic
mobile-phone services, following an order from the Supreme Court
that also cancelled as many as 122 telecom licenses allotted to
several companies in 2008.
Meanwhile, some of the affected companies said they will
continue their operations in India and will contest the order of
the court, which said the first-come, first-served process followed
to allot the licenses and bandwidth was "arbitrary and
unconstitutional" and facilitated corruption.
The order will be effective only after four months and, under
law, the companies can seek a review of the order.
The court had directed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
to issue new proposals for the grant of licenses and allocation of
bandwidth through auction.
"Keeping in view the time-bound nature of exercise [to frame new
rules], no extension of time will be given" to provide suggestions,
the regulator said in a statement.
The regulator, which had in January sought initial views on the
allocation of telecom licenses, said Friday it is also inviting
views for framing auction rules on the lines of a bandwidth auction
for third-generation services in 2010.
It had already submitted its views on separating bandwidth from
licenses in 2010--in 2008, the licenses were bundled with
bandwidth.
India had raised INR677.19 billion ($13.89 billion)--compared
with the initial expectation of INR350.00 billion--through an
auction of bandwidth for 3G telephone services in 2010.
Meanwhile, Norway's Telenor ASA (TEL.OS) and Sistema JSFC
(AFKS.RS) of Russia said their Indian units will continue
mobile-telephone operations and that they are looking for legal
remedies.
The court had ordered cancellation of all the telecom licenses
of Telenor's joint venture with Indian real-estate company Unitech
Ltd. (507878.BY) and Sistema's unit Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd.
Both Telenor and Sistema had acquired their stakes in the Indian
companies after the 2008 license and bandwidth allotment.
In separate statements, Telenor and Sistema said they will
contest the order, along with their Indian joint-venture firms.
Unitech Wireless had 36.30 million users at end of December,
while Sistema Shyam had about 15 million subscribers.
-By R. Jai Krishna, Dow Jones Newswires; +91-11-4356-3333;
krishna.jai@dowjones.com
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