a)  Refund the portion of amount on pro rata basis based on the remaining 

license period. 

b)  Estimate the amount of license fees lost by not providing it to the best 

user during the years, when the spectrum remained unutilised using 

ARPU & approx. subscribers. To this an interest payment can be 

added and the amount emerging can be subtracted from the entry fees 

paid. 

However, the difficulty with applying option b) to existing users is to estimate 

the amount of entry fees out of the total paid that was causal to spectrum. 

An important point arises in connection with the refund arising as a result of 

Government Policy on Unified License.   

In October 2003, the government provided the Service Providers with an 

option to move to Unified Access License, which would make the Service 

Providers capable of providing Basic as well as Cellular services. If a 

company has both these licenses in a service area (both have spectrum), and 

if it choses to move one licensee to UASL, the other license becomes 

redundant. It can be argued that this case has resulted in premature 

redundancy of one's license as a result of Government's policy. 

6.2 Secondary 

trading 

Another option to take care of frequency availability is to permit secondary 

trading. It is a mechanism where existing Service Providers can: 

Trade part or all of their allocation to others.  This might be a simple 

change of ownership with no change of use or could involve part or all 

of the spectrum being used for a different service.  The advantage of 

this approach is it provides an incentive to Service Providers to release 

un used spectrum as it has a financial value, which can be realised.    

Trading can potentially provide a means of allowing new services 

access to spectrum more quickly. 

Lease spectrum to others on a temporary or longer term basis.  

This allows other users the benefits of access to spectrum, which 

would not automatically occur in a more rigid regime.  Spectrum 

holders as well as new entrants are benefited with this approach. The 

new entrants could negotiate for leasing of the spectrum without 

spectrum holder relinquishing the spectrum.  

The introduction of secondary trading needs to be under pinned by an 

effective framework that can: 

Prevent interference 

Maintain competition / deal with anti competitive behaviour by 

Service Providers 

Ensure access to spectrum for essential services such as public 

safety, for non continuous use such as for programme making and 

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