New Delhi: The Telecommunications Bill, 2023, was introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 18. The Bill aims to rewrite a 138-year-old law – the Telegraph Act of 1885. Multiple reports note that the Bill includes quite a few amendments that had long since been in the offing.

Among the significant overhauls in the Bill is the introduction of a system to do away with the licensing regime and the stipulation for a biometric authentication of telecom customers.

For one, The National Frequency Allocation Plan, which is an administrative document that sets aside airwaves for different purposes, has now been given statutory force.

In the October 2022 version of the plan, the Ministry of Communications had noted that it will provide broad regulatory framework, along with identifying which frequency bands are available for cellular mobile service, wi-fi, sound and television broadcasting, radionavigation for aircrafts and ships, defence and security communications, disaster relief and emergency communications, satellite communications and satellite-broadcasting, and amateur service.

This, according to Business Standard, opens up one of the most controversial parts of the Bill – as to whether satellite spectrum is to be allocated administratively or auctioned. The latter has emerged the preferred mode for the allotment of spectrum while administrative allotment is to favour satellite television and broadband.

This is a purported "big win" for Bharti Airtel’s OneWeb, Elon Musk’s Starlink, and Amazon’s Kuiper, according to Indian Express. While Reliance Jio, for one, had called for auctioning.

Opposition parties are not thrilled. Congress MP Manish Tewari has said that this move will pave the way for the 'Mother of all Telecom scams’.

"Former CAG Vinod Rai’s 1.76 Lakh Crore 2-G fantasy & fiction writing would be dwarfed by a REAL SCAM whose number could be 10x or even 20x of 1.76 Lakh Crores," he wrote on X.

Lawyer and tech policy analyst Apar Gupta noted that the intricacies of the Bill merited a deeper look but that "Rather than dealing with it, the Union Government is cementing a colonial power under the guide of, "reforms"."

Such powers, write Gupta, include "surveillance, internet shutdowns and licensing of OTT service providers."

The telecom department had earlier asked the telecom regulator TRAI for modalities around auctioning satellite spectrum, Express has reported.

Telecom companies, considered a divided industry, had consistently asked for the government to recognise new spectrum bands such as 26 gigahertz that have been identified by the International Telecom Union (ITU) for 5G deployment. This had made it to the NFAP of 2022. This Bill has provisions allowing telecom companies to “refarm” spectrum, according to The Hindu, or use it for other technologies than initially intended when they bought it. Thus 4G spectrum can be repurposed for 5G under the Bill’s provisions, the report notes.

The reference in the new Bill text to ‘authorisations’ that will have to be obtained by telecom operators and other providers of telecom services, according to The Hindu, won't extend to online services like WhatsApp even though they will be needed to set up a telecom network, and for “possession of radio equipment”.

Journalist Nikhil Pahwa has noted simply that, "You'll need Indian govts [government's] permission to start your biz" in a Bill which he has also labelled as "anti-internet."

"This clause was inserted despite the govt realising what a mess it's made with verifiable biometric authentication in the data protection bill," Pahwa also wrote on X.

The Hindu report notes also that regime of  “trusted sources” regime  which intends to stop import of telecom equipment from hostile countries will be part of the law now. This system came into being after the 2020 Indo-China border violence.

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