DoT In Dilemma To Work Out 2G-3G Revenue Split

The Department of Telecom may find it difficult to work through the segregation of revenues between 2G and 3G due to complex splitting methods.

Even as the Ministry of Finance, TRAI and CDMA operators feel the separation is tough and can give rise to revenue loss, GSM operators had told DoT that such a plan was workable, but it now appears that even the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) is finding it difficult to cite a successful example for such a split.

Hong Kong, France, Greece have found the exercise quite difficult.

In a letter to its member companies, COAI director general T V Ramachandran is believed to have said the Hong Kong model of segregation followed by OFTA (regulator in Hong Kong) was very complex and ’nobody appears to be happy about it'.

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He even told the members that Hong Kong telcos ‘are probably going to go away from the system’. The visiting chairman of the French Regulatory Authority (ARCEP), Paul Champsaur, told representatives of the Indian telecom industry recently that France never implemented a differential system because of the complications involved in segregation of 2G and 3G revenues.

He, however, preferred to implement a uniform one percent charge for both 2G and 3G. This is despite the policy makers in France proposing a differential system. (PTI)