Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal said on Wednesday that all future licences will auctioned and allocation of spectrum will be de-linked from the licence.

“All future licences will be unified licences and allocation of spectrum will be delinked from the licence. Spectrum, if required, will have to be obtained separately. A final view on implementation of the Unified License Regime would be taken after receipt of detailed Guidelines and Terms & Conditions from TRAI for Unified Licence including migration path for all existing licence(s) to Unified Licence”, said Sibal addressing a press conference. 

He also said that there will be uniform licence fee across all telecom licenses and service areas which will progressively be made equal to 8% of the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) in two yearly steps starting from 2012-13.

He said that Merger up to 35% market share of the resultant entity will be allowed through a simple, quick procedure. However, there may be a need to consider cases of merger beyond 35% market share in certain circumstances without breaching the 25% cap on GSM spectrum/ 10 MHz for CDMA spectrum holding in any service area.

Sibal said that recommendation of TRAI that such cases will be considered up to a market share of 60% has been taken note of.  In order to ensure clarity on the circumstances and extent to which merger above 35% limit would be permissible, detailed transparent criteria will be prescribed/ adopted after receipt of TRAI’s recommendations and after due consultation with the appropriate authorities.