New Delhi,In a major relief to Bharti Airtel,
Vodafone and Idea Cellular, Telecom tribunal TDSAT today upheld their plea to
provide 3G intra-circle roaming services, while also quashing the cumulative
penalty of Rs 1,200 crore imposed on them by Department of Telecom.“We are
allowing all the petitions,” said a TDSAT bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam.
The bench said that 3G ICR
agreement signed by Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular is not violative of
licence agreement.Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular had approached TDSAT
against Department of Telecom order to stop 3G intra-circle roaming agreement
under which they had also agreed to acquire customers in area where they did
not win spectrum.Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular won 3G spectrum in 2010
auction. Airtel won 3G spectrum in 13 out of 22 telecom service area for Rs
12,295.46, Vodafone in 9 for Rs 11,617.86 and Idea Cellular in 11 circles for
Rs 5,768.59 crore.DoT issued notice to Airtel, Vodafone and Idea on December
23, 2011 asking companies to stop 3G ICR within 24 hours and report compliance
but the order was challenged by telecom operators.
Tata
Teleservices and Aircel too had signed 3G ICR but immediately called off their
agreement after DoT issued notice to them.Airtel sought access to Vodafone’s 3G
network in four service area- Maharashtra, Kolkata, Haryana and UP East.Vodafone
accessed six 3G circles of Airtel- Assam, Bihar, Karnataka, North East,
Rajasthan and UP West besides 7 circles of Idea Cellular- Andhra Pradesh,
Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, UP West and
Punjab.Idea is yet to start 3G service in Punjab.
Under the agreement, Idea
Cellular secured right to provide 3G service using Vodafone’s network in Delhi,
Tamil Nadu, Chennai and Kolkata.In July 2012, TDSAT gave split verdict
where one of the bench member ruled in favour and other member ordered against
it.DoT again issued notice to telecom operators asking them to stop 3G ICR
service along with penalty cumulatively amounting to about Rs 1,200 crore which
was quashed by the tribunal.Telecom operators-Airtel, Vodafone and Idea
Cellular then approached Delhi High Court which ruled in favour of DoT’s
decision to hold the 3G roaming pact of the telecom major as illegal.
Telecom operators then moved
the Supreme Court against order of HC and sought that the case be transferred
to TDSAT.The Apex court allowed telecom operators to move their case to TDSAT
in September 2013.
“TDSAT
had recognised the stand of telecom operators on the basis of which they made
aggressive bids for 3G spectrum.“The judgement also benefits customers who will
have more choices now besides operators, who can now freely invest in network
coverage,” Industry body Cellular Operators Association of India Director General
Rajan S Mathews told here.
He played down apprehension of
the decision affecting value of spectrum in future auction and selective
bidding by operators in some circles.We know there is not enough spectrum
available. Though telecom operators may go for spectrum sharing or this kind of
agreement but everyone wants to be on drivers seat.
If
there is level playing and spectrum auctions are made reasonable, people will
go for it,” Mathews said.In 2010, there was no pan-India bidder for 3G auctions
while wireless broadband spectrum auctions held immediately after this saw
Infotel Broadband Services, now Reliance Jio Infocomm, emerging as only
pan-India winner.There had been no successful pan-India bidder during spectrum
actions held in November 2012, March 2013 and February 2014.Mathews sees
possibility of 3G ICR kind of agreement with other type of spectrum as well.
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