Telecom Lead India: The India government owned BSNL has
urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to waive 3G spectrum
usage charge for a few years in order to become more competitive in the market
place.

TRAI could offer holiday for a few years on 3G spectrum usage
charge. Further, charges for spectrum and license fees on devices sold by operators
could be withdrawn by telecom regulator,” said BSNL in its response to TRAI on
a consultation paper on mobile and data tariffs.

According to BSNL, the tariff for data service offered by
BSNL is the most competitive and reasonable.

BSNL suggested that the focus of TRAI should be to protect
the interest of operators in addition to protecting the interest of consumers.
Almost all operators are on the negative growth of profitability. The revenue
accrued from 3G services is yet to match the cost of capital of the 3G spectrum
fees.

In order to boost its 3G subscriber base, BSNL started
offering tablets.

BSNL
tablet gets over one lakh pre-order requests, says manufacturer

Pantel Technologies, a Noida-based company claimed that it
has received more than one lakh pre booking orders over phone and online for
the three BSNL tablets, announced by state-run BSNL last week. The three
tablets, bundled with BSNL connection, are in the price range of Rs 3,499 – Rs
12,500.

In 2011, Firstpost reported that BSNL’s losses were forcing the
telecom giant to return some of the 3G and broadband wireless access (BWA)
spectrum it was forced to buy in 2010 at inflated prices. BSNL paid Rs 8,500
crore for BWA spectrum alone.

The government earned over Rs 106,000 crore from 3G and BWA
spectrum auctions – Rs 67,719 crore from the former and Rs 38,300 crore from
the latter.

According to a PTI report, BSNL wants to retain BWA spectrum
in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana. By surrendering the
remaining circles, it could be expecting over Rs 7,000 crore in licence fees.

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