Maran favours 3G entry fee

Posted on | June 15, 2006 |

Speaking at the sidelines of the GSM Association’s New Delhi conference, Telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran said that the Government was in favour of an entry fee for 3G services.

• Spectrum was a scarce resource and the Government has to make some money out of it
• We do not want operators to sit over spectrum without using it

Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel spoke against any such fee.

“To make 3G services affordable, there should be no separate entry fee for 3G. An entry price of any kind is also amortised over a period of time of the licence. That’s a levy the customer does not need. India must seamlessly migrate to 3G as Bangladesh and Pakistan have done, without any entry ticket.”

This comes a day after TRAI issued a consultation paper to discuss the pricing and allocation of 3G spectrum. The Government will take a decision after TRAI comes out with its recommendations.

Hopefully our government will not auction the spectrum and learn from the mistakes of Europe in 3G licensing.

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