NBTC wants post-concession guidelines to be ready by mid-September

The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission’s telecom committee has ordered a subcommittee to complete the guidelines on this issue before September 15 this year, said an NBTC source. The plan has to be complete one year in advance of the expiry of the concessions.
TrueMove and DPC hold CAT Telecom concessions. TrueMove has about 17 million subscribers and DPC almost 80,000.
The NBTC source said the telecom committee had also drawn up the terms of reference to hire an adviser to study the economic value of the 1,800-megahertz spectrum to back up the legitimacy of its claim to retrieve the spectrum from CAT for reallocation once the TrueMove and DPC concessions end. The adviser will focus on the scenarios of whether the spectrum is reallocated by the NBTC or is used by CAT to provide its own service.
Under the NBTC spectrum management master plan, both state agencies are obliged to return their concessioned spectra to the commission for reallocation once their concessions end. However, CAT and TOT want to keep the spectra to generate their own revenue in future, and have asked the Information and Communications Technology Ministry for support on the matter. CAT will also consult the Council of State.
A telecom analyst said that if CAT and TOT could keep their spectra, the state agencies would probably allow the existing telecom operators to utilise them via wholesale or mobile-virtual-network-operator contracts. This could provide an upside for the telecom operators, as there will likely be no upfront fee for entering the contracts with CAT or TOT, unlike in the spectrum auction.
Earlier this year the NBTC office worked out seven options to deal with TrueMove and DPC concessions. One is that the watchdog would bring back their 1,800MHz spectrum from CAT for auction. The auction would take place before the concessions end and after the NBTC auction of the 2.1-gigahertz spectrum bands. TrueMove and DPC also have to propose to the watchdog their own measures to deal with the concessions’ termination.
The NBTC will auction the 2.1GHz spectrum in October.
Another option is that the NBTC extends TrueMove’s and DPC’s concession terms by two years to give them time to transfer their subscribers to other networks. But that might breach the Telecom Business Act, which allows private concession holders to operate only until the concession ends.
The other option is that the NBTC devises a special measure to enable them to continue offering service for two more years during which they will transfer customers to other networks. However, the NBTC has to make clear first whether TrueMove and DPC would still have to pay concession fees to CAT during this special period. The other cellular operators might lack incentive to expand their networks to serve customers migrating from TrueMove and DPC as they face the expiry of their own concessions.
CAT earlier told the NBTC that it should be allowed to continue providing service on the 1,800MHz spectrum to TrueMove and DPC customers for a certain period after their concessions end.