New Delhi: J.S. Sarma, chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), comments on the cancellation of 122 telecom licences by the Supreme Court:
J S Sarma, chairman, Trai
“The 2007 recommendations have been found to be flawed. The credibility of Trai has not been questioned as if that was the case then they would not have asked us to come out with the new guidelines. We have been given two months to come out with guidelines on the method for auction of telecom licences and spectrum as was done for 3G spectrum.
“There will be very little impact of the ruling on subscribers as 95% of the subscribers are with operators who got licences before January 2008. They are allowed to port out in any case.
“We will closely monitor tariff changes but there is unlikely to be any major change due to this ruling. Tariffs may rise marginally if the spectrum and licences are auctioned.
“More than 500 Mhz becomes available, for auction, which we were anyway looking at freeing up by cancelling licences that had not completed their roll-out obligations.”