Press Information Bureau

Government of India

Ministry of Communications & Information Technology

30-November-2012 16:10 IST

The Government has, inter alia, decided the following on levy of one time Spectrum Charges/fee as per the Cabinet decision on 8th November, 2012.

(i) for spectrum holding upto 4.4 MHz (GSM), no one time charge be levied;

(ii) for all spectrum holdings beyond 4.4 MHz (GSM), an one time charge be levied prospectively upon the existing operators at 2012 auction determined price. The date of applicability of the charge shall be the date of commencement of the first quarter following the date of the Cabinet Decision;

(iii) for spectrum held above 6.2(GSM), a one-time charge be levied from July 2008 onwards. There will be two prices. The price, pro-rated for the period July 2008 up to the date of applicability of auction determined price, would be in the 2001 entry fee divided by 6.2, duly indexed using State Bank of India Prime Lending Rate (SBI PLR). The auction determined price be levied for spectrum beyond 6.2 (GSM)/ with effect from the date of commencement of the first quarter following the date of the Cabinet decision;

(iv) licensees may be given the option to surrender the spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz (GSM) if they did not wish to pay this charge.

Tariffs for mobile services are currently under Regulatory forbearance except for National Roaming Services. The call rates are determined by the service providers based on several factors including input costs, market conditions and other commercial considerations. Any change in the said factors may get reflected in the pricing for mobile services.

This information was given by Shri Milind Deora, Minister of State for C&IT in written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.

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MV/RK

One-time spectrum charge introduced; operators pay auction-determined prices for holdings above baseline, with surrender option. A one-time spectrum charge applies prospectively at the auction-determined 2012 price for holdings above a baseline, with retrospective application from July 2008 for holdings above a higher threshold using a two-tier pricing approach: a pro-rated historic price indexed by SBI PLR for the earlier period and the auction price thereafter. Licensees may opt to surrender spectrum beyond the baseline in lieu of payment. Mobile tariffs remain under regulatory forbearance, allowing providers commercial discretion in pricing.