Department of Telecommunications is looking into the recommendation of rejecting Qualcomm's licence for broadband wireless services (BWA) in four circles on grounds that the company did not apply for licence in time.

"They have not sent their application in time and we will deal with it accordingly. All these matters are sensitive issues. There are investments that ride on these decisions.

"But in all cases, matters will be taken strictly in accordance with the provisions of the licence conditions, allocation of spectrum in accordance to law," DoT Secretary R Chandrashekhar told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

"At this point, we haven't issued any notice," he added.

Global mobile chip maker Qualcomm, however, denied the allegations. It said the company applied for licences on August 9, 2010, through locally incorporated entity, which was within a month of getting Letter of Intent (LoI) from DoT for internet service provider licence.

"DoT gave us LoI for ISP A category licence on July 13, 2010. We applied within a month for the licences on August 9, 2010, through our entity incorporated in India," a company official said.

Qualcomm won spectrum for high speed BWA service in four circles -- Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana and Kerala -- through auction done by DoT in June 2010 and paid Rs 4,912.54 crore (about USD 1 billion) for spectrum in these circles.

Qualcomm partnered with Indian firms Tulip Telecom and Global Holding Corporation in July 2010 to form a separate entity, Wireless Broadband Business Services (WBBS), to run BWA business. This entity applied for ISP A category licence for each circle.

"ISP A category licence in a pan-India licence but like cross holding norms in unified access services licence (UASL) in a circle, there are no such bindings for ISP A," the official said.

The official added that in any case Qualcomm through its nominees applied for only one licence in a circle as per Notice Inviting Application (NIA) condition.

"NIA explicitly requires new entrants to apply for an ISP licence in the specified service area, in case the applicant is declared successful in that service area. DoT, however, seems to have a different interpretation," Qualcomm said in a statement.

WBBS applied for licences nominee of Qualcomm in each service area where the company won the spectrum. .