Mobile phone companies will not be allowed to share spectrum without paying the one-time airwaves levy, the telecom department has decided. This means all leading mobile phone companies, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Aircel among others cannot share airwaves, as they have managed to obtain stays from different courts and stall the imposition of this one-time spectrum charge that came into effect from January 1, 2013.
The telecom department had imposed a one-time spectrum charge on airwaves held by existing mobile phone companies after the Union Cabinet had cleared the proposal in late 2012. Private operators have to shell out . 18,000 crore towards this fee. The one-time fee has two components to it — mobile phone companies have to pay for all their 2G spectrum holdings beyond the 4.4 MHz prospectively for the remaining period of their licences based on the prices discovered in the auctions that concluded in November 2012.
