Date:01/07/11

India to resolve all telecom issues by October - Minister

India's federal telecom minister Thursday said the government expects to resolve all pending issues related to the troubled telecommunications sector by October.
The government will look to sort out issues relating to licensing, spectrum allocation, telecom tariffs, pricing, roll-out obligations, spectrum sharing, spectrum trading, mergers and acquisitions among others, Kapil Sibal told reporters.
India is preparing a new telecom policy, which, Sibal has previously said, will be ready by end of 2011. The policy is being prepared at a time when confusion reigns in the industry over multiple issues. India's efforts to clean up the sector follow allegations of rigging in a sale of licenses and bandwidth that has put the ruling government under immense pressure. The minister, who oversaw the sale, had to resign following accusations that he favored some companies and sold licenses in 2008 at prices set in 2001, depriving the government of billions of dollars in potential revenue. The minister and 13 others are currently in jail and the case is being probed by multiple agencies and monitored by India's Supreme Court.
The sector regulator had also sought cancellation of licenses of companies which hadn't met their roll-out obligations. The government is yet to take a final decision on that.
Separately, Sibal said that the federal Cabinet has approved an investment of INR500 million to set up a lab to test and certify telecommunications equipment used by mobile phone operators in India. "The proposed center would formulate standards and policies as well as provide facilities for testing, validation and security certification for various network elements, in order to render the networks secure and less vulnerable from internal and external threats," Sibal said in a statement.

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