Cabinet to mull 4 options on spectrum pricing on Tuesday

The Cabinet will tomorrow discuss four options on prospective spectrum pricing, reports CNBC-TV18’s Malvika Jain.

After the Supreme Court’s order to cancel 122 2G licenses, the Department of Telecom proposed that those telecom companies whose licenses have not been impacted by the SC cancellation order should also pay market determined prices for 2G spectrum currently held by them. The first option the Cabinet will discuss is that the entire spectrum which these companies currently hold should be charged on the basis of the market determined prices. Second is that for the initially allocated spectrum, that is 4.4 megahertz (Mhz), there should be a market determined price that should be imposed. The third is that for 6.5 Mhz, that is the contracted spectrum, the market determined price should be imposed. The fourth is that there should be no prospective charge on these companies whose licenses have not been cancelled by the Supreme Court. This, however, is something that DoT is not favour of because it feels that there should be a level playing field. Given that the 122 telecom licensees will have to pay a market determined price for spectrum, the regulator believes all the companies should be asked to pay a market determined price. There is of course strong resistance to this proposal from the telecom companies, because this is going to impact their financial position miserably. Watch the accompanying video for more details..