NEW DELHI: TRAI has recommended to the government that the entry fee for telecom companies across various license authorisations should be reduced and bank guarantees that they have to provide should be merged in order to spur growth and make it easier to do business in the telecom sector.

“It is expected that reductions in entry fee will lead to the entry of new service providers in the market, increase investment and enhance competition in telecom sector,” Trai said it its recommendations on Tuesday. “The merging of bank guarantees will encourage ease of doing business and enable licensees to make investments in the sector thereby ushering growth in the sector. Both these measures will improve the quality of service and enhance consumer welfare,” the recommendations state.

The Authority has also recommended no entry fee at the time of renewal of license. Such a move will ease the financial burden on existing, as well as new entrants, and will be beneficial for UL (VNO) licensees especially.

The salient features of the recommendations include:

The entry fee should be reduced from the present levels for Unified License (UL) as well as Unified License (Virtual Network Operator) (UL (VNO)) licenses.