TRAI GIVES ITS RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE GOVERNMENT ON LICENSING
OF'RECEIVE ONLY VSAT' SERVICE
TRAI today provided
the Government with its suo motu Recommendations on licensing
of ‘Receive only VSAT’ Service. The Authority is of the opinion
that ‘Receive only VSATs’ can provide a useful means to spread
services such as Tele-education, Tele-Medicine, Information (newspaper
on-line), and social education to the remote areas in the country
and facilitate the efforts of the government in bridging the Digital
Divide.
The main recommendations
are as under:
1 Need for
a separate category of license
The TRAI after
careful examination has come to the conclusion that there is need
for a separate category of license for ‘ Receive only VSATs’.
Keeping in view the differences between the two-way VSATs and
Receive only VSATs both in terms of capability and target market
segments the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, has recommended
a separate category of license for ‘Receive Only VSAT Service’.
2 Recommendations on the
terms & conditions of the license:
I) Scope of Services and
maximum data rate
The tele-services
that ‘Receive only VSAT’ can provide will depend upon the limitation
on bandwidth. Keeping in view the demand for new broadband applications,
a maximum bandwidth of 2 Mbps per downlink has been recommended
for ‘Receive only VSAT’ category.
- Type of License
While making
its recommendations for issuing licenses for "Receive only VSAT",
TRAI has introduced the concept of a new type of license namely
Class License. A class license establishes a set of general
conditions, which are widely publicised amongst the class of
service providers/companies concerned. Any service provider/company
may participate in the activities under the class license on
the stipulated terms and conditions provided they comply with
the terms and conditions in this category of license. TRAI is
of the view that licenses for services such as "Receive only
VSATs" should be given freely and, therefore, in its opinion
licensing of such activities would be done best by way of class
licenses. This approach, TRAI believes, will help in introducing
administrative simplicity and encourage quicker roll out of
these services.
- Period of license
The license
for Receive only VSATs be granted for a period of ten years
in the beginning and be extended after carrying out a review
of license fee based on profitability and roll out obligations
met.
- Number of licenses
The number
of licensees will depend upon the spectrum availability. Assuming
that each licensee may utilise a 2 Mbps channel, transponder
allocation can be carried out suitably on a first come first
serve basis.
- Entry Fees
As ‘Receive
only VSAT’ is a new service, for which a market will need to
be created and also the fact that there is a need to promote
roll out of these services in the rural / remote areas, a low
entry fee of Rs 5 Lakhs has been recommended by TRAI.
- Roll Out Obligation
The licensee
may start service using his own hub / hub hired from VSAT Service
providers/ hub hired from infrastructure provider, within a
period of one year of grant of license. In addition, a performance
bank guarantee of Rs 2 lakhs may be taken from the service providers
to be encashed if the roll out obligations is not met.
- Sharing of Infrastructure
In order to
economise on the cost of providing service and to encourage
innovation, Receive only VSAT Service Providers be allowed to
lease / hire uplink streams of nX2 Mbps capacity from VSAT Service
Providers and Infrastructure Providers to provide this service.
- License Fees
A nominal license
fee amounting to 5% of its Adjusted Gross revenue is recommended
for the first three years. This would go towards Universal Service
Contribution and may be reviewed after this period.
- Transponder and WPC Charges
The transponder
and WPC Charges as applicable for using space segment and frequencies
shall be applicable. However, to promote "Receive only
VSATs" especially for social applications like Tele-education,
Tele- medicine etc., it is recommended that WPC charges for
"Receive only VSAT" terminals be waived off.
- Interconnection with other networks
The ‘Receive
only VSAT’ Service Providers should be permitted to have leased
lines connecting to the content providers on the transmit side
provided the terminal at the content provider end is standalone.
Interconnection to other public telecom networks should not
be permitted except Internet, which may be permitted for access
to content on ‘case to case basis’.
- Monitoring and Security Conditions
The Monitoring
and Security considerations as applicable to VSAT may also be
made applicable to Receive only VSAT Service Providers.
(Detailed recommendations
are available at our web site www.trai.gov.in)
