The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Monday decided that spectrum use charge (SUC) will be levied at 5 percent on all new spectrum bought in the auction.

The telecom minister Kapil Sibal told the media persons that all new spectrum to be auctioned , it will be 5 per cent but it will be charged at weighted average. The cabinet will take the final call on the issue, he said.

“There is no protection of revenue. In this process, if the Government loses some revenue, doesn’t matter. Ultimately consumers have to be benefited,” he said.

Spectrum usage charge for broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum will continue to remain at one per cent as the Government has not amended the existing contractual obligation.
 
Under the current SUC policy, charges are levied according to the amount of airwaves held by the operators, and are charged between 3% to 8% basis the spectrum allocation. In short, the Incumbents who are holding large amount of spectrum will end up paying SUC at the upper end of the range.
 
GSM industry body Cellular Operators Association of India, which represents operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea is of the view that the government should  implement the Trai suggestion while  Reliance Jio and Videocon Telecom are opposing any change in existing SUC regime, specially those radiowaves that have been already allocated.