The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released a pre-consultation paper on issues relating to exit policy for various telecom licenses.
“The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), via its letter dated October 10, 2011 and subsequent clarification dated December 23, 2011, had requested TRAI to recommend an exit policy for licensees of all types of licenses, who wish to exit from provisioning of telecom services under a license,” the regulatory agency said in a release.
The pre-consultation paper has been released to solicit comments/views from all the stakeholders on issues, including the advantages & disadvantages for the individual licensees, and the potential impact on government revenues and on the telecom sector as a whole. The stakeholders have to submit their responses by January 16.
In the present telecom licensing framework, there is no exit policy except for Internet Service Providers (ISP) licenses, but there are provisions to surrender the licenses.
Some of the vital issues that will be addressed via this process before formulating the exit policy for all the telecom licenses include:
- Whether partial exit (surrender of spectrum only-in part or complete) from the business should be allowed
- What should be the terms and conditions for exit?
- Desirability and feasibility of refund of part of entry fee;
- Release of bank guarantees;
- Policy on surrender of spectrum; policy on refund in case of partial/full compliance or non-compliance with roll-out obligations;
- Time frame for exit from the business/service; modus-operandi to shift the customers from one service provider (who desires to exit from the business) to another service provider;
- Settlement of liabilities/claims of the service provider exiting from provisioning of telecom services under a license.
