DoT : New Telecom Policy in April 2012

                       21/2/2012

The Department of Telecom (DoT) is in process of implementation of New Telecom Policy(NTP2011).DoT said new telecom policy is likely to be approved in April 2012. The draft note will be given to the Cabinet for the further consideration at the end of March and the result was expected at the end of April 2012. Under the proposed regulations, operators would be allowed to hold higher spectrum of up to 8 MHz (except Delhi and Mumbai where the upper limit would be 10 MHz) and pay a uniform licence fee of 8 per cent. New telecom policy brings lots of changes such as PAN India Free Roaming, PAN India Mobile No Portability etc. According to new policy operator can able to acquire frequency beyond the prescribed limit through auction. The last telecom policy in India released in 1999.

Main highlights of the draft National Telecom Policy 2011:
  * Free roaming and pan-India number portability
  * “Right to Broadband” plan that proposes increasing the broadband downloading speed up to 2Mbps by     
      2020.
  * Increasing tele-density up to 60 percent by 2017 and 100 per cent 2020
  * Availability of 300MHz spectrum by 2017 and another 200 MHz of spectrum by 2020
  * Delinking spectrum license; provision of radiowaves at market price






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