The Supreme Court on Monday sought reply from Tata Teleservices, Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and others on an appeal filed by DoT challenging the sectoral tribunal’s order that allowed the private telecom operators to offer 3G services under a roaming arrangement in areas where they did not win spectrum in a 2010 auction. The agreements allowed the telcos to offer 3G services using airwaves that the other operators had won for a fee.
A bench headed by Justice Jasti Chelameswar sought reply from Tata Teleservices, Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Reliance Communications and others after the Centre challenged the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal’s April 29 order that overturned a DoT ban on offering 3G mobile services beyond their licensed zones through roaming pacts on the ground that it was in national interest to allow better utilisation of scarce radio
frequency.
Challenging the TDSAT’s judgment that ruled in favour of intra circle 3G roaming, DoT in its appeal said that the tribunal erred by distinguishing between the delivery of services permissible under the licence and the allocation of spectrum for rendering those services and also arriving at “an erroneous conclusion that use of 3G technology and the delivery of services through 3G technology is not excluded from the scope of the licence.”
Stating that 3G service is a separate and a valuable service and it is not an extension or continuation of the 2G spectrum, the department said that the holders of “2G licences” cannot provide “3G services” by entering into intra-circle 3G roaming arrangement.
“The tribunal has failed to appreciate that the licences for providing 2G and 3G services are different and that the parties who fail to get 3G licenses cannot circumvent the provisions of the licenses and enter into arrangements to provide 3G services, which are contrary to the terms of licenses,” DoT sated.
While DoT held these pact between the service providers as illegal and said that it was equivalent to subletting one’s spectrum, the TDSAT had stated that such arrangements did not violate Unified Access Service Licence (UASL), and had also quashed Rs 1,200 crore penalties levied by the department.
