The paper has recommended the issue of licences for an initial period of 20 years, followed with 10 year extensions thereafter. However, satellite service providers will be exclude form the purview of this licence structure. The terms of final licences in all categories will be finalised by the TRAI by June 30 this year, alongwith the tariff structure.

The discussion paper, expected to be the backbone for drafting the new telecom policy, was submitted by the sub- group headed by the ICICI Managing Director K V Kamath to the GoT headed by Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission JaswantSingh.

The new policy framework seeks to categorise the telecom service sector on the following lines, cellular mobile service provider (CMSP), fixed service providers (FSP) and cable service providers (CSP), collectively referred to as Access Providers, radio paging service providers (RPSP), national long distance operators (NLDO), international long distance operators (ILDO), other service providers (OSP), global mobile personal communication by satellite (GMPCS) and V-Sat providers.

CMSP's shall now be permitted to provide mobile telephony services including long distance traffic within their service area without an additional licence. They would be eligible to obtain licences for any number of service areas, but will have to take separate licences for each.

CMSP's shall also be allowed direct inter-connectivity between themselves and other access providers within their area of operation. In addition, they will also be permitted to use, share infrastructure and services with any other serviceprovider. The service areas will be categorized into four metro circles and telecom circles as per existing policy.

DoT and MTNL would be permitted as the third operator in each service area in a time bound manner, subject to the immediately available frequency spectrum band. Spectrum utilisation will be reviewed regularly in order to rationalise usage, requirements of market, competition and other interests of the public.

The entry of the new operators in a cellular service area shall be based on the recommendation of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), who will review this as required and no later than every two years. The CMSP operators would be required to pay a one time entry fee, to be decided by the TRAI. Apart from this, CMSP operators would also be required to pay licence fee based on a revenue sharing basis. The percentage of revenue share shall be applicable on the gross cellular mobile revenue earned by a CMSP. It is proposed that the appropriate level of entry fee and revenuesharing arrangement for different service areas would be recommended by TRAI in a time-bound manner by June 30, 1999. The Fixed Service Providers (FSP) shall be freely permitted to provide last mile linkages to provide fixed services and carry long distance traffic within their service area without seeking an additional licence. Direct inter-connectivity between FSPs and other types of service providers will be allowed, in addition to shared use of infrastructure & services.

The FSP may also utilize last mile linkages or transmission links within its service area from other service providers and will be free to provide all types of fixed services including voice/non-voice messages, data services, information & entertainment services in their service area. Two different concepts have been suggested in regard to the number of FSPs in each service area. These are multiple operators or two operators (duopoly), on the lines of existing basic telephony at present. The percentage of revenue share shall beapplicable on the entire revenue earned by the FSP through provision of various services.