The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will issue a consultation paper within a week which will recommend to the government unification of national and long distance, Internet and other services under the unified licence.

The government had recently cleared unified license which combines the cellular and basic services.

Speaking to mediapersons on Wednesday, Pradip Baijal, chairman, Trai said, "We will submit the recommendations of the preliminary consultation paper to the government in about six months."

Baijal was speaking at the sidelines of the telecommunication and information technology international trade show and conference - Telecom India 2003 - organised by the India Tech Foundation.

Baijal pointed out that there will not be any geographical barrier, "The unified license will be automatic and the operator will have a choice of area and services which he can offer to his customers."

Pointing out the need for such unified licence, Baijal explained that the technology was moving faster "and the service operator should not come to the tax payer for any compensation. That is the reason why that the unified license should be automatic and service neutral," he pointed out.

He elaborated that there was a need to get the telecom sector out of the licensing regime. "An operator can pay a small entry fee for the license providing a level playing field to the operator. However, the spectrum should be priced additionally which should not be expensive to the operator nor the spectrum should be cheap enough to result in the spectrum being used inefficiently," he said.

Baijal brushed aside the allegations by cellular operators of inefficient spectrum and pointed out that China uses 44 MHz for 250 million subscribers, while India uses 30 MHz for 25 million subscribers.

On the issue of the carrier access code, Baijal said a report was placed just three days back and a decision was expected at a later date.

He pointed out that for CAC, the the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited will have to make investments close to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore (Rs Rs 20 billion).

However, he pointed out that CAC will come with a price tag and the costs will have to be borne by all who need CAC.

In his keynote address, Baijal for the first time defended the decision to go ahead with the unified license proposal.

He pointed out that Trai looked at the telecom sector in totality and took lot of efforts to study several regulatory papers across the globe.