The government on Tuesday issued guidelines for single licence for basic and cellular services, paving the way for basic operators like Reliance Infocomm to offer full mobility on its WLL phones.

As per the calculation provided in final guidelines, Reliance would have to shell out Rs 1096.01 crore (Rs 10.96 billion) for migration to the new regime besides a penalty.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had recommended a penalty of Rs 485 crore (Rs 4.85 billion) on Reliance for offering roaming-like services on its WLL phones.

With this the government has also issued an addendum to the existing NTP '99 and decided that there will be two additional categories of licences for telecom services.

One is for unified access (basic and cellular) services permitting players to provide basic or cellular service using any technology in a defined service area and another for unified licence for telecom services permitting service providers to offer all telecom or telegraph services covering various geographical areas using any technology, an official release said.

With the final guidelines in place, the payment of additional entry fee and penal interest, if any, would have to be made upfront along with the request for migration to the new unified access services licence regime.

On receipt of the request along with the requisite payments, DoT will carry out actual calculations and will intimate the difference of amount, if any, to the concerned applicant, which shall have to be paid within 3 working days from the date of receipt of demand.

Failing a response by the applicant, the application would be rejected and the amounts paid by the prospective licencee would be refunded within a period of 15 days, the final guidelines said.

However, no interest shall be paid by DoT for the amounts deposited for migration to unified access service licence.

The licence fee, service area, roll out obligations and performance bank guarantee under the unified access service licence would be same as for the existing cellular service providers.