Telecom operators have sought urgent intervention of the telecom department to prevent implementation of an order from the environment ministry which requires them to remove older active infrastructure equipment from telecom towers to meet targets set under e-waste management rules issued in 2022.
The rules have brought telecom and broadcasting equipment within the ambit of e-waste through a notification issued in November 2022 and effective from 1 April 2023. The telcos have argued that the rules were issued without consulting the industry, and are set to adversely impact existing 2G, 4G networks and future 5G network deployments.
“The telecom network serves around 200 million 2G subscribers, where certain equipment is more than 15 years old. It is very difficult to get the replacement of such equipment. We therefore foresee a major impact on 2G services in India which primarily serves the rural customer base,” industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said in a letter earlier this month, a copy of which was seen by Mint.
The telcos have also argued that the targets for collection of used equipment for recycling starting from 60% of the products sold earlier to be collected by the end of FY25-end, and rising to 80% by the end of FY28, were impossible to meet. The entire exercise of assessing and identifying the lifecycle data of a product would be immensely time consuming, they said.
Currently, there is no set implementation mechanism between telcos, passive infrastructure providers, for example, tower companies, and equipment makers for collection and recycling of telecom e-waste.
Another challenge would come from defining the average life of a telecom product. As per the rules, telecom and IT products including base stations, routers, antennae, transmitters, modems, tablets, and Wi-Fi-enabled devices have been brought into the ambit of the e-waste rules, with the average life ranging from three years to 15 years. For instance, base stations average life has been proposed at 15 years, and the number of base stations that would thus need to be recycled and hence replaced with new ones would run into hundreds of thousands of units.
A senior telecom industry executive said replacing these units could trigger network disruption, besides fresh investment for new equipment, which will sharply increase the capital expenditure needs of companies at a time when they are spending on 5G network rollouts.
“Under the E-waste (Management) Rules, 2022 the Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) Authorization and Registration is required to import electronic equipment. Presently, critical shipments of 5G equipment are being withheld by customs due to EPR Authorization,” COAI said in its letter, highlighting another issue being faced by the telcos, and sought clearance of the equipment from customs.
The association has flagged that the telecom industry and its nodal ministry—DoT, should have been formally consulted when the rules were framed by the environment ministry to understand its impact on business and national network operations.
“In view of telecom services being a licensed industry with numerous service obligations, providing essential telecommunication services that are required to operate 24x7, with zero downtime, we believe that the e-waste rules, 2022 may have several unintended consequences,” COAI said, indicating service disruptions.
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