The telecom department has allowed telcos to deploy their switching equipment anywhere in the country instead of restricting them to circles, through an amendment in unified license (UL) conditions Tuesday.
The move will work to the advantage of carriers as they would be able to optimise equipment deployment as per capacity requirement across the country, which would also help them in managing their capex requirements slightly better.
Rajan Mathews, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents top carriers including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio notified that this amendment is indeed helpful for operators as it allows them to optimise location of switching and network infrastructure by allowing for consolidation across LSA or service area whereas previously it was restricted to each LSA where the operator had a license
The change in rule may also indicate a move towards India becoming a country with a single license for operations instead of 22 services areas or circles, as all carriers were pan-India, Mathews speculated.
While the change in rule would help telcos to move their equipment around to manage capacities, the movement would not happen on a large scale or any time soon as all telcos would want to ensure that services that would require low latency networks – for instance machine to machine (M2M) or internet of things (IoT) – have adequate relaying equipment to support their proper functioning.
By Baishakhi Dutta
