Shares of six telecom services providers fell between 0.4% to 3.79% at 12:15 IST on BSE on reports of finance ministry asking the Department of Telecom to put the 3G policy on hold.
Tata Communications (down 3.79% to Rs 432.80), Reliance Communications (down 1.87% to Rs 432.15), Spice Communications (down 0.86% to Rs 74.50), Bharti Airtel (down 0.44% to Rs 818), Tulip Telecom (down 0.57% to Rs 961), Idea Cellular (down 0.4% to Rs 87.10), edged lower.
Reportedly, in a move that may delay the rollout of 3G services in the country the finance ministry has said it was not consulted on the financial implications of the 3G policy guidelines.
Earlier this month, communications minister A Raja lifted the curtain on the 3G policy, which would enable telecom operators to offer high-end services such as video conferencing, faster downloads of music and movies, interactive gaming and high-speed internet. Mr Raja had announced a reserve price of Rs 2,020 crore for auction of pan-India 3G spectrum for GSM operators and about Rs 505 crore for pan-India WiMAX radio frequencies. As per the current schedule, the auction for 3G spectrum will be held within the next three months, spectrum allotted by the year-end and services launched by mid-2009.
The finance ministry has taken the line that DoT has breached protocol as it arrived at these figures (the reserve prices) without consulting it. This marks the second instance of differences having cropped up between different government wings over the recently-announced 3G spectrum policy reports said.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment