GSM lobby COAI on Thursday welcomed Trai's recommendations on M&As and uniform licence fee, saying it will help operators rationalise their costs of operations, but expressed displeasure on spectrum pricing.

"Recommendations on M&A, uniform licence fee and rationalisation of spectrum limit would be positive for the telecom industry, which is reeling under high operational costs," COAI General Secretary R S Mathews said.

Trai has supported spectrum sharing saying "it would be permitted between any two licencees holding spectrum subject to the condition that the total spectrum would not cross the permissible limit under mergers".

The permission would be for a period of five years, subject to renewal for one more term of five years, it added.

It has also reiterated its recommendation for a uniform licence fee of six per cent over the next four years.

On the issue of identifying additional spectrum, Trai said it is separately initiating an exercise to review the usage of spectrum available with the government agencies.

The telecom industry, with over 800 million subscribers, has grown on a rapid pace resulting in spectrum crunch. The government has been looking at various ways, including options like spectrum sharing and refarming, to provide operators with additional airwaves to offer the best services to consumers.

Mathews, however, expressed disappointment over Trai's stand in maintaining the six-fold jump in 2G spectrum price.

Trai had earlier this year recommended Rs 10,972.45 crore for the contracted 6.2 Mhz spectrum for pan-India licence as against Rs 1,658 crore paid by operators till the last round of allocation of licence in 2008.

"With regard to 2G spectrum pricing, we are very disappointed that Trai has maintained the same recommendation," Mathews said.

The recommendations would be sent to the Department of Telecom for consideration. If these come into effect, massive financial burden would be imposed on mobile service providers as they would have to pay almost six times of what they had paid to get the spectrum earlier.

Most of old licences are due for renewal in the next 3-5 years and operators would have to pay as per the current prices recommended by Trai, resulting in extra financial burden on the service providers.