RCOM Gets Pan-India License

DoT on Thursday announced a pan-India GSM licence for Reliance Communications. The company had already paid the requisite licence fee of Rs 1,651 crore for a pan-India GSM licence on October 19, 2007.

The licence will guarantee that RCom will be in queue for GSM spectrum ahead of the 46 others that have applied for licences recently. RCom currently offers telecom services on the CDMA platform in all telecom circles in the country, and, through its 100% subsidiary, also offers GSM services in seven telecom circles.

RCom will now have to wait for DoT to allot 4.4 MHz of GSM spectrum in each of the circles to launch commercial operations. RCom will be allotted spectrum only after existing licence holders—Vodafone, Aircel and Idea—are granted start-up spectrum to launch services and other existing players that have applied for a pan-India licence are allotted both licences and spectrum.

Source: The Telegraph