The licences will be issued to all eligible applicants on submission of completed applications in a prescribed form. The application forms containing the guidelines, general information and the details of the licence agreement will be available on sale at the Headquarters of Telecom Commission, Delhi, and the Telecom Circles outside Delhi, from 18th February, 1998 onwards. The broad guidelines and terms and conditions of the ISP licence are:

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA : A company registered in India under the Companies Act, 1956 will be eligible to submit the proposal for providing Internet Service. Foreign equity shall be as per the Government policy and guidelines issued from time to time. At present, the foreign equity is permitted to the extent of 49 per cent. There is no requirement for the applicant-company to have any prior experience in information technology or telecommunication services.

SERVICE AREA : The Internet service areas have been grouped into three categories. Separate licences would be granted to any company for each service area.

CATEGORY ‘A’ SERVICE AREA : This includes the whole of India.

CATEGORY ‘B’ SERVICE AREA : This consists of each one of the 20 Territorial Telecom Circles and the four Metro Telephone Systems of Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai of the DoT. However, if a licence for the Telephone Systems of four major cities of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune is required, these will also be treated as Category ‘B’ Service Area on a par with the Telecom Circles.

CATEGORY ‘C’ SERVICE AREA : This includes any Secondary Switching Area (SSA) with their geographical boundaries defined by DoT as on 1.4.1997. The SSAs of each of the four Metro Telephone Systems of Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai and Telephone Systems of four major cities of Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune with their geographical boundaries defined as on 1.4.1997, however, stand excluded from Category ‘C’ as they already form a separate Category ‘B’ Service Area.