The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on telecom has accorded approval for a uniform spectrum usage charge (SUC).

An SUC of five per cent of an operator's adjusted gross revenues on all new airwaves bought at an auction, received approval. The move has resolved the uncertainty around the upcoming auctions.

With this, the incumbent operators will now have to pay a charge that is the weighted average of six per cent on existing spectrum of 10 MHz and five per cent on new spectrum. While a new operator must pay an SUC of five per cent against the existing three per cent, the charge will not go up as it buys more spectrum in the future.

However, new SUC will be beneficial only if the department of telecommunications (DoT) puts in place a system that can segregate revenues from broadband wireless access (BWA) services spectrum and 2G airwaves.

Further, the EGoM decided to continue with an SUC of one per cent for BWA spectrum. However, BWA operators will have to pay an SUC of five per cent for the new airwaves they acquire and will need to report separately the revenues earned from the BWA airwaves and the new spectrum.