DoT issues Guidelines for PMRTS

The department of Telecom has issued a detailed guidelines for migration of existing operators to NTP 99 regime and the issue of fresh license for radio trunking services. The existing operators shall be allowed to migrate to digital technology at their option. They shall be given preference for migration to digital technology. The fresh licenses shall be considered after verifying the requirement of frequency spectrum in a particular service area. All the existing licensees shall intimate their willingness for migration to digital technology within a period of one month and shall be required to sign a fresh license agreement in terms of the new policy. The licence of existing operators, who are not willing to migrate to the new licensing regime, shall be extended, if requested, upto another ten years, so as to make the total licence period upto 15 years for continuing with analog systems, during which period the operators may change over to digital technology. However, no spectrum will be kept reserved for them. Those operators willing to migrate to Digital Technology shall be allocated upto 1 MHz additional frequency Spectrum for Digital Technology and shall be directed to transfer their network positively within two years from the date of letter of confirmation in this regard. Failure to migrate the network to Digital system may result in cancellation of License Agreement. The licence agreement for these operators shall be extended, so as to make the total licence period of 20 years. A minimum of 10 channels ( 25 Khz. each ) shall be reserved for the expansion of the analog systems during the period of migration from Analog to digital technology.

According to the guidelines, fresh PMRTS licenses shall be granted after assessment of Migration of existing operators to digital technology and availability of spare frequency spectrum in a particular service area, since implementation of above policy is solely dependant on availability of frequency spectrum. The details of guidelines has been put up on
www.dotindia.com