TRAI Seeks Opinion on Unified Licence for Virtual Network Operators

With the aim to accommodate technological evolution and changing market requirements, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday released a consultation paper on introduction of an Unified Licence (UL) regime for Virtual Network Operators (VNO).

The TRAI has sought comments from stakeholders.

The Unified License (UL) regime is expected to exploit the benefits of convergence, spectrum liberalisation and facilitate delinking of the licensing of networks from the delivery of services, so as to enable the telecom service providers (TSPs) to optimally and efficiently utilise their networks and spectrum by sharing active and passive infrastructure.

"TRAI released a Consultation Paper on Introduction of UL (VNO) for Access Service authorisation for category-B licence with districts of a state as a service area. TRAI has issued this Consultation Paper, raising specific issues for consideration of stakeholder," the authority said in a statement.

The authority had recommended introduction of VNO in May, 2015 and subsequently the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) issued guidelines and licence agreement for the grant of UL in May last year.

The TRAI has sought to know from stakeholders whether the existing Direct Inward Dialling franchisees should be mandated to migrate to UL (VNO) category-B based licensing regime or should the licence duration be kept for 10 years, which is at par with other licences issued under UL (VNO) policy.