In its recommendations to the government, TRAI has suggested that a one-year time period should be given from the effective date of the licence agreement to commission service. The recommendations will be applicable to GMPCS service providers including Iridium, ICO, Globalstar, TCIL-Thuraya, Aces International, Reliance and Agrani.

Significantly, TRAI is of the view that the government, keeping in view the overall national requirement, may consider levy of a differential service tax on GMPCS service in addition to the annual licence fee

TRAI has also suggested imposition of penalty for delay in commissioning of projects. This would be in the form of an additional entry fee of Rs 5 lakh for delay up to one year, Rs 10 lakh for delay between one to two years and Rs 15 lakh for delay beyond two years. The additional entry fee would be payable even by those applicants who seek time of more than one year for commissioning the service.

TRAI has also suggested that gross revenue accruing to the GMPCS licence would not include items like interconnection/access charges payable to other service providers within India whose network the GMPCS provider will be interconnected for carriage of calls, roaming revenues collected on behalf of other service providers and payments to VSNL for bypass.

In addition, revenues related to sale of user terminals, taxes levied on the provision of service, actual payment made towards universal service fund and amounts recieved as security deposits from consumers shall also not be included in the gross revenue.

TRAI has said that the idea behind the deductions of these revenues in arriving at the adjusted gross revenue is to avoid the same revenue being subject to sharing with the government in multiple hands.

LAYING THE LINES
* TRAI proposes restructured licence agreement
* Penalties for delay in project commissioning
* Revenue share to be paid in advance four quarterly installments
* Government free to impose surcharge over and above entry fee