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Reliance Jio has complained to the Department of Telecom that Airtel’s acquisition of Tikona’s 4G spectrum has resulted in a loss of ₹217 crore to the national exchequer.
In a letter to the DoT, Reliance Jio said that since Tikona has an Internet Service Provider’s licence, any transfer of spectrum to an operator with a unified access licence should attract a migration fee.
In March, Airtel had announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Tikona Digital Networks to acquire the latter’s 4G spectrum business, including the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum and 350 sites, in five telecom circles.
Under the new unified licence regime, if an operator with internet licence, with BWA spectrum, wants to offer voice services then it would have to pay a one-time migration fee. The DoT had earlier asked Reliance Jio to pay ₹1,650 crore for migrating its internet licences to the unified licence.
According to RJio, Airtel was circumventing the rule by acquiring BWA spectrum from an ISP without paying the migration fee. “The underlying principle is that if broadband spectrum which has been acquired in the 2010 auction with an ISP licence is subsequently to be used for providing access services (including voice), in any manner whatsoever, by migration, merger or otherwise, an entry fee equal to the UASL license fee has to be paid to ensure a level playing field. Any circumvention of this principle, in whichever form including through misuse of M&A guidelines, will lead to loss of revenue for the government exchequer and must be prevented,” RJio said in its letter to DoT.
When contacted an Airtel spokesperson said, “Bharti Airtel has always been and will continue to be fully compliant with all regulatory guidelines. We strongly deny these allegations, which is yet another mischievous attempt to throttle/block competition.”
The DoT had earlier asked Airtel to pay the migration fee when it acquired 4G spectrum from Qualcomm in 2013. Bharti Airtel has legally contested this decision to collect a fee of ₹436 crore. Airtel had then said it already holds Unified Access licence and therefore does not require additional authorisation.
“We cannot be asked to pay any new entry fee for providing the services which are already allowed in the scope of our existing Unified Access Service Licence. Any proposal to impose new entry fee would tantamount to double entry fee for the same authorisation…,” Airtel had said in a letter written to DoT in 2014.
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