India’s Department of Telecom (DoT) has published a list of 60 companies applying for an MVNO license in various cities.
The companies have between them applied for 70 state, city or sub-district specific licenses across 11 of India’s 22 telecoms circles.
The DoT is offering MVNO licenses under a unified license arrangement, with an entry fee of 75 million rupees ($1.1 million).
MVNOs seeking to offer services on a pan-India basis will need to pay a 1.5 million rupee license fee and a 10.25 million rupee fee for a national and international long distance license.
There were no applications for the Bangalore circle and only one each for Punjab, Maharashra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. By contrast, Gujarat received 22 applications, Mumbai received 12, Uttar Pradesh got 11 and there were eight in Delhi.
Some companies applied for more than one city or circle specific license, with Mumbai’s Telenet Services making seven applications.
MVNOs will be able to partner with multiple operators, but with the exception of data services, will be able to have only one MNO provider per access service type.