The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has recently granted license to Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications (RCom) to start GSM services in 14 new circles.

With this, RCom now has a pan India GSM license, along with CDMA. The company already provides GSM services in 8 circles. Now there is an addition of 14 more circles.

DoT has made necessary amendments to the Unified Access Service License (UASL), thus enabling the company to offer GSM services in addition to its existing CDMA services.

However, DoT has said that the amendments are subject to availability of spectrum. RCom will be allotted spectrum only after existing license holders that have applied for a pan-India license are granted spectrum.

RCom has paid the requisite license fees of Rs 1,651 crore on October 19 for a pan-India GSM license, after DoT announced its revised spectrum allocation norms, and permitted CDMA service providers to offer GSM services.

Meanwhile, other leading GSM service providers like Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea have challenged the new spectrum allocation policy, and also the move to allow use of dual technology.