DoT amends telecom licence to allow Machine to Machine Communication

The department of telecom (DoT) has made amendments in the telecom licences to suit the service providers deploying machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. This is a service that is perhaps a key driver of 5G adoption in India, reports PTI. 

The amendment spans every category of telecom service licences.  

Although the DoT has brought out M2M guidelines in May 2018, the clause about its provisioning was not a part of the licences.   

An entry fee of Rs 30 lakh, a performance bank guarantee of Rs 40 lakh and financial bank guarantee of Rs 2 lakh has to be accrued by the telecom operators interested in providing M2M services across India.  

The entry fee for the circle-level has been pegged at Rs 2 lakh, PBG Rs 2 lakh and FBG at Rs 20,000. The entry fee, PBG and FBG for the district-level category will be Rs 20,000, Rs 10,000 and Rs 2,000 respectively.