Licensed for M 2 M services across India

The Department of Telecom has amended its licences to allow service providers to roll out machine-to- machine communication, a service that is considered a key driver of 5 G adoption in the country.

The clause related to their provisioning was not part of the telecom licences, as the DoT had issued M 2 M guidelines in May 2018.

According to a circular, the DoT has incorporated M 2 M with Pan-India permit, limited to circle level and district level.

Telecom operators interested in providing M 2 M services across India will have an entry fee of Rs 30 lakh, performance bank guarantee PBG of Rs 40 lakh and financial bank guarantee FBG of Rs 2 lakh.

The entry fee for the circle level category has been fixed at Rs 2 lakh, PBG Rs 2 lakh and FBG Rs 20,000. The entry fee, PBG and FBG for district level will be Rs 20,000, 10,000 and 2,000.

The DoT has added a clause for provisioning of audiotex or interactive voice response service IVRS as part of the telecom licence.

The amendment was made across all categories of telecom service licences.