The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) plans to notify the final rules for obtaining and migrating to a unified licence by end of this month.

The new licence, which will form the crux of the New Telecom Policy 2011 (NTP 2011), has proposed to merge all licences ? mobile, landline, Internet service and long distance ? into one universal licence. However, the spectrum will be delinked from the licence and all companies will compulsorily need to migrate to the UL regime when it gets notified. DoT expects the new licensing regime to ensure fair competition within the sector.

According to a DoT internal note, “once the licence is vetted by the law minister, guidelines for the licence and the guidelines for migration can be notified by April 30.”

A special committee, constituted to prepare the unified licence document, has also recommended two licences-? unified licence (national) and unified licence (service area) — for telecom operators. The committee had taken the decision after examining the recommendations of DoT and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

Last month, former telecom secretary R Chandrasekhar had said that the UL regime will be finalised after considering all legal options.

The telecom ministry has also stated that mobile companies seeking ‘extension’ of their permits would have to obtain unified licence and buy spectrum separately to continue their operations in respective circles. DoT recently rejected licence extension proposals by Vodafone India, Bharti Airtel and Loop Telecom, which are set to expire next year.

“The regime has changed. Today, the licence and spectrum are two separate things. Previously, the spectrum was with the licence at a cost of Rs 1,658 crore. Today, they are separate … all the operators have to migrate to unified licence,” Kapil Sibal, telecom minister had said last month.

According to broad features of UL, telecom companies holding the licence will be able to provide all services that existing licences permit as well as share spectrum and other active part of telecom infrastructure that were not permitted earlier.

Telecom service providers who want to provide any additional service apart from current offerings, will have to go for unified licence. In case of mergers and acquisitions also, the companies need to go for unified licence.