India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is reportedly considering to allow MVNOs in the country to avoid buying back spectrum from up to eight cash-strapped operators which were awarded licenses two years ago. The idea is to allow some of the companies to work as wholesale operators and eventually rent their network to other brands that could launch MVNO services.
Among the struggling companies are Telenor’s Uninor, S-Tel, Etisalat DB, Videocon, Sistema-Shyam and Loop — all of which are having hard times competing in the Indian mobile market. The alternative for the Indian government is to pay back about $140 million to carriers who return the spectrum. “We will ask new operators to go for an MVNO model, rather than return spectrum, which could be [an] alternative,” a senior DoT official told India’s Business Standard newspaper.
MVNOs are still banned in India and the hope is they’ll be able to start operating in the near future.
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]