The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), bombarded with several hundred applications for the new Unified Access Services (UAS) licences, has formed two committees to find out the actual backers of the applications and formulate screening guidelines to sift out non-serious applicants.

The DoT, sources said, doubted that a number of applicants were “non-serious” players acting as fronts for some other interested groups, because of which the committees had been formed.

The winners of the UAS licences would be able to offer telecom services in the circles they get their licences for.
Describing the rush to file applications for the UAS licences as maddening, the sources said there was a need to “establish” the real identities of the promoters and shareholders of the new applications. The barrage of applications came even as the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), the representative body of existing service providers, has demanded that the GSM operators already providing service should be first provided additional spectrum.

The DoT believes that many of the applications might have been filed by interested parties wanting to corner some of the scarce spectrum and then try to sell them off at a premium to needy operators.
 COAI already has expressed doubt about the real intentions of many of the applicants.

While no formal list of applicants is available, among those who are believed to have applied for UAS applications are global giant AT&T, real estate companies DLF, Omaxe, Parsvanath, BPTP and Ansals, steel majors Ispat Group, Hinduja TMT and Jindal Steel, the Dalmia group, the Sterlite group, and IT companies Sify, Moser Baer, BPL, Tulip and e-network Solutions.

Some of these companies have confirmed that they had applied, while others have not. Monday was the last date for submitting applications.

AT&T, meanwhile, has announced that it would partner with Mahindra Telecommunications, a subsidiary of the Mahindra group, for its mobile venture.