New Delhi: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today recommended unrestricted entry and free competition in the VSAT sector and allowed operators to connect to Internet nodes through leased lines, but kept an entry fee of Rs 30 lakh to weed out non-serious players. The regulator, in its recommendations submitted to the government, said entry of new operators might be allowed freely, but after the licensor getting satisfied over the financial and technical ability of the operator. An one-time entry fee of Rs 30 lakh has been recommended.This can be adjusted against the prescribed licence fee as the roll out package. Licence fee has to be slashed from the existing Rs 50,000 per VSAT per annum to Rs 20,000 per VSAT per annum for upto 500 terminals. Upto 1000 VSATs it would Rs 15,000 per annum, but the entry fee would be Rs One crore and for more than 1,500 VSATs the licence fee would be Rs 10,000 per annum and with an entry fee of Rs 1.5 crore. Significantly, the regulator has decided to allow the hub of VSAT operator to connect to Internet node of his choice by a leased line. This would, in effect, allow the VSAT operators to provide the much required bandwidth to Internet service providers.
A spokesman of the VSAT Service Association welcomed the move and said it has been long pending demand of the industry. Interconnection with networks of other VSATs and network operators could be carried out on mutual agreement, but permitted interconnection with terrestrial data lines leased by customers of VSATs such as stock exchanges, on the condition that it is not connected to fixed line services. Also recommended is the interconnection to overseas offices of Closed User Group (CUG) for data transfer purposes, provided that such connection would be between hub and the server of the overseas offices by a leased line through an Internet gateway.
Definition of CUG has been recommended to be changed. As per this rule, CUG could also become a formation of larger groups consisting of smaller groups amongst which there is a community of interests. This would bring banks and financial institutions, health service providers, groups in the business of transportation, educational institutions and libraries under the purview of CUG.
The regulator also recommended that no additional entry fee be charged for migration as the existing service providers have been paying minimum licence fee per annum for a number of years. No licence fee will be levied for the "Receive Only" terminal that can play transmission of information relating to health, education, distance learning and disaster management. TRAI also recommend allowing VSAT operators to use bandwidth over the currently allowed speed of 64 kbps and proposed a graded surcharge.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.