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Mobile tariffs are set to fall again with the department of telecom (DoT) permitting active infrastructure sharing among the service providers. The move would help in reducing tariffs and increasing teledensity in rural areas besides enabling telecom operators to save input costs.

In its guidelines, DoT said it has permitted sharing of active infrastructure such as antenna, feeder cable, Node B, radio access network and transmission system. The sharing would be based on mutual agreements entered among service providers and infrastructure providers.

However, the sharing of the allocated spectrum would not be permitted. The licensing conditions of unified access service license, cellular mobile service providers would be amended wherever necessary to permit such sharing, the DoT said. All telecom operators welcomed the decision. “This move will bring down the cost of rolling-out telecom network infrastructure resulting in lowering of tariffs and increase in telecom penetration. This is a win-win situation for the government, industry and consumers,” a Tata Teleservices spokesperson said.