Telecom Comission Approves relief package for mobile companies

New Delhi Jan 10: The Telecom Commission has approved some of the recommendations made by the TRAI in order to provide relief for the companies. Earlier the Telecom Regulator has recommended that "ceiling on spectrum held by mobile operators within a particular band should be removed. It suggested a 50 percent cap on the combined radio wave holding inefficient bands like 700 MHz, 800 MHz, and 900 MHz."

Currently, as per rules no mobile service provider can hold more than 25 percent spectrum, vital for transmitting signals, in an area and more than 50 percent in a frequency band and this has became a major problem for the companies to exit the telecom sector which are under stress.

The Telecom Commission has also approved the following
# Extension of time period for the payment of spectrum bought in auctions by operators to 16 years from the current 10 years.
# Lower the interest rate on penalties paid by telecom operators by about 2 percent.
# Raising of Network for Spectrum project cost to Rs 24,664 crore by Rs 11,330 crore.

Officials have said that the Department of Telecom (DoT) will send drafts of the relief package cleared by the Telecom Commission to Cabinet this week for final approval.