Telco chiefs meet PM on 3G, spectrum pricing

Amid a stand-off between telecomcompanies and the government, the chiefs of private service providers onWednesday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to seek an early resolution to thedispute over agreement on 3G roaming services and one-time fee for additionalspectrum.

Chiefs of leading telecom firms, including Sunil Mittal ofBharti Airtel, Anil Ambani of RCom and Vittorio Colao of Vodafone, amongothers, also met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Telecom Minister KapilSibal to put their point of view, sources said.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) and the sector regulatorTrai have termed the existing agreement among operators for offering pan-India3G services, despite not having spectrum in all the circles, as violation oflicence norms, a charge rejected by the industry.

Besides 3G roaming, operators also discussed various issueslike one-time fee additional spectrum held by GSM operators and Trai'srecommendations on merger and acquisition, sources said.

Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea have entered into a roamingpact among themselves in circles in which they had failed to bag 3G spectrumauction held last year.

However, there was no official word on the outcome on themeetings.

Recently, the DoT had said in an internal note that theroaming agreement among telecom companies for 3G services would lead to asignificant loss of revenue for the government.

There may also be an impact on revenues from spectrum usagecharges collected from operators, according to the internal note prepared bythe DoT.