TRAI floats Pre-consultation paper on telcos exit policy

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has floated a pre-consultation paper on exit policy for telcos. The regulator on the basis of the inputs is contemplating to issue a consultation paper on exit-policy for the telecom service providers soon.

The regulator while formulating the exit policy for all the telecom licenses is planning to address issues like: Whether partial exit(surrender of spectrum only-in part or complete) from the business should be allowed; Terms and conditions for exit; Desirability and feasibility of refund of entry fee; Release of bank guarantees; Policy on surrender of spectrum; Policy on refund in case of partial/full compliance or non-compliance of roll-out obligations; Time frame for exit from the business/service; Modus-operandi to shift the customers from one service provider to another service provider; Settlement of liabilities/claims of the service provider exiting from provisioning of telecom services under a licence.

On 10th October, 2011 and 23rd December, 2011 the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had requested TRAI to recommend an exit policy for all types of telecom licenses. TRAI is working on the basis of these two letters to come out with an exit policy consultation paper. Later on recommendations on exit policy guidelines will be finalized by holding discussions with all stakeholders.

In the present licensing framework of telecom licenses in India, there is no exit policy except for Internet Service Providers (ISP) licenses, but there are provisions to surrender the licenses. In case of ISP licenses, DoT had spelt-out an exit policy in 2002.

For the pre-consultation paper, TRAI has asked all stakeholders to submit their responses by 16th January, 2012. The responses can be e-mailed to advmn@trai.gov.in.