The COAI, an organisation of mobile carriers, has requested the government to reduce the licence cost to 1% and to remove customs duties on network equipment for the launch of 5G.
The Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) lobbied for the elimination of the Universal Service Obligation Fund, or USOF, in its budget wishlist that it presented to the finance ministry.
The government has been urged by the top telecom association to rationalise GST, lower the licence fee from three percent to one percent, and waive customs taxes on 5G network equipment.
The COAI also requested the elimination of GST on licence fees, spectrum use fees, and payment of spectrum obtained in auctions at the pre-Budget meetings conducted on Monday.
Input tax credits for GST that have accrued totaling 32,000 crore rupees must be refunded, and the eligibility of input tax credits for important equipment erected on telecom towers must be clarified.
Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea are just a few of the telecom companies that are members of COAI.
Tuesday, COAI presented a compelling case for OTT (over-the-top) communication services to pay telcos directly for the data traffic they are generating on the networks. COAI also favoured a licenced and loosely regulated structure for these services. The draught telecom law includes proposals from the organisation regarding how OTT communication services should be classified to ensure there is no ambiguity, according to COAI Director General SP Kochhar.
In the future, when the details of the framework for light-touch regulation are debated, the government would be informed of other issues, such as the precise financial model for OTT communication services to pay telecom service providers, Kochhar noted. Applications like WhatsApp, Signal, Google Meet, Telegram, and others provide OTT communication services.
