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By Devidutta Tripathy
NEW DELHI, Feb 18 (Reuters) - India will allow wirelessbroadband airwave holders to provide voice services if they payan additional $306 million, a senior government official said onMonday, a move likely to boost billionaire Mukesh Ambani'sReliance Industries Ltd.
Reliance Industries, controlled by India's richest man, isthe only company with nationwide fourth-generation (4G)broadband airwaves. The company re-entered the fiercelycompetitive sector by buying airwaves in a 2010 auction and hasso far invested at least $3.5 billion.
Firms which own the broadband wireless access (BWA) airwavescan provide voice services along with high-speed Internet ifthey pay a fee of 16.58 billion rupees ($306 million), R.Chandrashekhar, the top bureaucrat at the telecommunicationsministry, told reporters.
"There is no restriction on the technology that is beingused (to provide voice services)," he said.
A move by Reliance Industries, which is still preparing tolaunch high-speed 4G Internet services, into the voice marketwould intensify competition and hurt rivals such as BhartiAirtel Ltd and the Indian unit of Vodafone Group Plc.
Reliance Industries shares extended gains to as much as 1percent after the news, while shares in Bharti Airtel, thecountry's top telecommunications carrier, were down nearly 1percent at 0920 GMT.
The Telecom Commission, the highest decision-making bodywithin the ministry, approved the move on Monday, but it must tobe formally signed off by the Telecommunications Minister,Chandrashekhar said.
Voice accounts for almost 85 percent of Indian carriers'revenues, while data is still at a nascent stage. Data servicescontribute just about 5-6 percent of the total mobile servicesrevenues as fewer people browse the Internet on phones.
Reliance Industries was not immediately available for acomment.
Separately, the Telecom Commission deferred a plan to bringtower companies under the Unified Licensing regime, which ispositive for companies such as Bharti Infratel Ltd.
If brought under the regime, the tower companies would haveto pay an annual licence fee of 8 percent of their revenue andwould be required to cut foreign shareholding to 74 percent.
Currently the companies pay no licence fee and a foreignshareholder can own as much as 100 percent of their equity.
