Paving the way for new players to start GSM mobile services, Communication and IT Minister A Raja on Tuesday signed the file, enabling Dept of Telecommuication (DoT) to issue telecom licenses to nine companies.

According to senior officials, the minister has signed the file and DoT would soon start issuing Unified Access Service (UAS) license to new players, including Unitech Developers, Datacom (in which Videocon has stake), Idea and Shyam Telelink, among others.

This is bound to increase competition in the GSM mobile segment and tariffs are set to fall in the coming months. DoT has worked out that entry of 5-6 new players would result in fall in tariffs by at least 50 per cent from the current level.

In fact, officials said, Raja has a vision to bring local tariffs on mobile phones down to 25 paise a minute and domestic STD call to 50 paise.

This will be possible only by increasing competition.Asked by when the players would be alloted spectrum to start services, the officials did not give any time frame but said DoT was considering allocating the radio frequency simultaneously depending upon the quantum of air waves available with the government.

Meanwhile, DoT is also continuing deliberations with the defence authorities to get about 25 MHz of spectrum vacated for reallocation among mobile service providers.