Case Name :      Pricing Telecom Licences in India

Authors :           Mukherjee Srabanti, Debdatta Pal

Source :             Ivey Publishing

Case ID :            W12509

Discipline :        Marketing

Case Length :    15 pages

Solution Sample availability : YES

Plagiarism : NO (100% Original work)

On February 2, 2012, the Supreme Court of India cancelled all 122 second-generation (2G) telecom licences issued on or after January 10, 2008 by the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). This judgment, along with the announcement of the National Telecom Policy-2012, forced the DoT to rethink the issue of pricing spectrum, which was earlier bundled with 2G licences. First, was re-auctioning required? If so, what should be the minimum reserve price? Should DoT follow a uniform pricing strategy for all the incumbents, including those whose licences were cancelled? How could it strike a balance between investor apathy and the government’s objective of increasing rural tele-density, given the possibility of a tariff hike after the refarming of spectrum?