In its recommendations for the budget for fiscal 2010, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the apex body of GSM operators, had called for a uniform licence fee of 1 percent of AGR, excluding the 5 percent Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund charge.

USO fund is the corpus set up by the government, wherein every telecom operator has to shell out about 5 percent of their AGR (including licence fee) to facilitate rollout of telecom sevices in rural areas.