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The country's largest state-run telecom firm, BSNL, has favoured a no-cap policy on the number of players in a service area but said if spectrum and licences are bundled together, as is the current practice, then there should be minimum 5 players to ensure fair competition.
The country's largest GSM player, Berti Airtel, wants minimum number of telecom operators, including BSNL/MTNL, in a given service area should not less than four.
The PSU, which is in full support of delinking spectrum from the Unified Access System (UAS), said, "If it is decided not to delink spectrum from UAS licence, the regulatory and licensing environment must ensure that there are at least five access service providers in each service area to ensure fair and adequate competition.
"However, there should not be any limit or cap on the maximum number of access service providers, which may be left to be determined by the market forces and availability of adequate spectrum," it said in response to TRAI on 'overall spectrum management and review of licence terms and conditions.
The PSU has said UAS licence should be delinked from the spectrum with immediate effect, which is in line with the recommendations given by the Authority from time to time and a DoT panel has also recommended the same.
UAS licence permits the operator to provide any type of telecommunication access services -- whether it is basic, 2G mobile, 3G mobile, ISP, BWA.
The licensee, if so desires, can acquire the spectrum at the market determined price and provide the wireless services.
Alternately, it can focus on deployment of wireline networks, which will propel the growth of Internet.
"BSNL is not at all in favour of not to delink the spectrum from UAS License," the PSU said.
BSNL may submit financial bid for Zambia Telecom
State-run BSNL is likely to submit financial bid for a majority stake in Zambia s leading telecom company, Zambia Telecommunications Ltd (Zamtel).
"We are doing due diligence at the moment after qualifying in the first round. I think there is great possibility that we will put up the financial bid for Zamtel based on our estimation emerging out of the current due diligence process," BSNL CMD Kuldeep Goyal said.
On Saturday, Chairman and Managing Director of MTNL -- the other PSU which has also been shortlisted for the second-round of bidding process -- R S P Sinha said the company is interested in Zamtel.
The Zambian government is offering between 51 percent and 75 percent of its stake in Zamtel. The process is likely to be completed in the first quarter of 2010.
South Africa's Telkom, Africa's biggest fixed-line operator, which is sitting on about 10 billion rand (USD 1.35 billion) after selling its mobile unit Vodacom to Britain's Vodafone, is on the shortlist.
The prequalified companies and consortia have been invited to participate in the due diligence process that has started from 2nd November and will continue till 23rd December.
Others on the shortlist are a consortium of Russia's second-biggest mobile phone operator Vimpelcom and Altimo, the telecom arm of Russia's Alfa Group; a consortium of Egypt's Orascom Telecom and its subsidiary Telecel Globe; Angola's UNITEL - a consortium of Unitel S A and Angola Cables S A; Portugal Telecom; and a consortium of Libya's LAP Greencom and LAP Green Networks.
Zamtel's revenue for the year to end-December was USD 100 million. It is Zambia's only licenced fixed-line provider of voice and data communications.
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