Reliance Jio has won a significant victory in its legal battle with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) over calculating spectrum usage charges (SUC) in shared spectrum cases. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has supported Jio’s approach, which argues that additional fees for shared range can only be assessed in the band where airwaves are shared, not across the entire spectrum held by the operator. As a result, the government may now need to revise its guidelines.
Jio had previously received relief from the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) in January, which had stayed DoT’s demand for charging the company an additional Rs 13,000 crore towards SUC for the 2016-21 period. Following TDSAT’s interim relief to Jio, the DoT sought clarification from Trai on the calculation methodology.
The DoT had previously stated in its 2015 guidelines for spectrum sharing that companies who enter into such agreements will be required to pay an additional 0.5 percent over their regular SUC, which is calculated on the adjusted gross revenue of the operators. The guidelines allow for the sharing of spectrum between two companies in the same spectrum band. The additional 0.5 percent levied by DoT on Jio for sharing the range with Reliance Communications in the 800 MHz bands was added to the overall spectrum charge amount while calculating the SUC.
However, Jio argued that since it only shared spectrum in the 800 MHz bands, the additional charge should be levied on this band, not the overall amount. In its communication to DoT, Trai said its recommendation was always to add 0.5 percent in bars where spectrum is traded rather than on the entire range held by an operator.
Trai stated, “The Authority is of the view that as per the existing spectrum sharing guidelines, which were based on the recommendations of the Authority, the incremental SUC should apply to the spectrum band which is being shared and not on the overall weighted average SUC, which includes all the spectrum bands held by the telecom service providers.”
