NEW DELHI: An Open House Discussion will be organised by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on its consultation paper on minimum presumptive AGR for Spectrum and VSAT licenses.

The OHD will be held in the capital on 19 January 2017. The paper was issued on 17 August 2016 after a query by the Department of Telecom on 25 June 2014 and 15 May 2015 to which TRAI had responded on 2 March 2016.

TRAI had asked stakeholders if spectrum assignment on location basis/link-by-link basis on administrative basis to ISPs be continued in the specified bands. On 19 September 2016, TRAI extended the date for comments to 13 October.

The regulator has discussed issues relating to minimum presumptive AGR for ISP licenses and VSAT licenses and other issues raised by DoT which had sought TRAI’s recommendations in terms of clause 11(1) of TRAI Act 1997 on:

(A) ISP license (i) Rates for SUC; (ii) Percentage of AGR including minimum AGR; (iii) Allied issues like schedule of payment, charging of interest, penalty and Financial Bank Guarantee (FBG).

(B) Commercial VSAT license (i) Floor level (minimum) AGR, based on the amount of spectrum held by commercial VSAT operators. The Authority said in 2014 it had suo motu undertaken the exercise of review of definition of revenue base (AGR) for the reckoning of licence fee (LF) and spectrum usage charges (SUC).

Earlier, another Consultation Paper was issued on 31 July 2014 and Recommendations on 6 January 2015. The Recommendations, along with other issues, also contain recommendations on minimum presumptive AGR. In the Recommendations of 6 January 2015, the Authority had recommended that minimum presumptive AGR for the purpose of LF and SUC should not be made applicable for any licenses granted by the Government for providing telecom services. Paper is available on trai.gov.in

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