Cellular Cos against mandatory sharing

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Cellular service providers have opposed a proposal from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to make infrastructure-sharing mandatory as part of the licence agreement. Mobile operators have also said that India was not ready for the introduction of mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) who buys airtime from operators and then resells it to users.

consultation paper

TRAI had floated a consultation paper seeking the industry's views on whether sharing of infrastructure should be made mandatory since most operators were currently doing it on an ad-hoc basis. TRAI had said that sharing infrastructure would not only reduce costs but also enable operators to roll out network in order to meet Government's teledensity targets.

In its response, the Cellular Operators Association of India said, "There is a need to encourage and promote infrastructure-sharing through policy intervention and through suitable financial and other incentives. However, infrastructure-sharing should not be mandated."

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