ETIMC: Bharti Infratel chairman asks DoT to penalise telcos that fail on 5G rollout obligations front

Bharti Infratel Chairman Akhil Gupta has urged the government to ring in an affordable base price of 5G airwaves in the next sale and also made a strong case for penalising telcos failing to meet their 5G rollout obligations beyond the Tier 1 & 2 cities.

“Telcos failing to meet 5G rollout obligations, and only confining their coverage to Tier 1 & 2 cities with purely a profit maximisation aim, must be heavily penalised,” Gupta said, addressing delegates at the ET Telecom India Mobile Conclave 2019 Tuesday.

Conversely, phone companies that fully meet their 5G rollout obligations outside Tier 1 & 2 cities, he said, must be incentivised by way of “a complete waiver of licence fees, which can be recovered from the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) that has been accumulating over the years”.