Faced with the prospects of a prolonged legal battle with basic operators on limited mobile services, the Cellular Operators Association of India has provisioned for a massive increase in its budget towards the legal expenses to deal with the cases against WLL services.

The cellular operators, who have accumulated losses of over Rs 7,000 crore (Rs 70,000 million), have started reinforcing the finances of the apex body with a clear mandate to fight to finish against the WLL services, which they consider as the basic operators' backdoor entry into the mobile arena.

COAI, which has already spent Rs 1.93 crore (Rs 19.3 million) on legal cases associated with the WLL telephony, is carrying a liability (yet to be paid) of over Rs 1.42 crore (Rs 14.2 million) till June this year, highly placed sources said in New Delhi on Wednesday.

According to sources, the smaller cellular players having operations in one or two circles, have raised objections to COAI's move to fight the WLL cases, saying they may not be benefited greatly from fighting such cases.

When contacted, a cellular service provider told PTI on condition of anonymity that the smaller cellular players have proposed that 80 per cent of the legal expenses of COAI should be borne by the large players, while the rest should be contributed by the smaller players equally.

The issue had come up for discussion in COAI's last executive council meeting, sources said, adding that some decision in this regard was expected soon.

The regional cellular players, who have a smaller subscriber base, have expressed their inability to contribute to COAI's requirement towards fighting the legal cases.

They have also mooted a proposal that the legal cases with regard to WLL mobile telephony, if need to be fought, should be fought individually by the cellular service providers and not by the association, which collects funds from all the players.

COAI had recently presented its case to both the government and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India that the industry was incurring heavy losses due to the entry of WLL mobile telephony and thus made a case that the basic service providers should not be allowed to offer the WLL services.

The COAI has also been objecting Trai's move to initiate consultation process on the unified licensing regime. According to industry analysts, the hefty expenses by COAI on fighting legal cases to stop the advent of technology was not in the right direction and was hampering the competition in the telecom sector.