New telcos may get rollout relief

There’s good news for new telecom entrants such as Swan, Unitech, Datacom and Shyam, among others, on the rollout obligation front.  The department of telecommunications (DoT) is likely to link the time frame by which these telcos have to launch services in pre-determined geographical areas to the “date of allocation of spectrum’ and not the ‘date of issue of licence”. This issue may be discussed by the telecom commission during its meeting this week.  If this change is made to the existing policy, companies like Swan Telecom, Datacom Solutions, Unitech or Shyam Telelink, which were issued licences by DoT on January 25, 2008, will no longer be bound to meet their initial rollout obligation by January 25, 2009, as required under the existing telecom guidelines.  Instead, as these companies were allotted initial chunks of airwaves (spectrum) only in May 2008, they will get four more months to meet their initial rollout obligations. However, it remains to be seen if these telcos can meet the May 09 deadline as none of them have set up even a single tower till date.  Under the current norms, any player who gets the government’s nod to launch mobile services must ensure that the company’s services are available in least 10% of the districts in that circle or area within the first year of obtaining the licence, and 50% of the districts within three years of the effective date of licence.