The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has released the revised norms for mergers and acquisitions (M&As) between telecom companies within a circle. The norms have been made more stringent in four areas: pre-approval by DoT is required for any merger; the threshold market share of the merged entity, beyond which a merger will be prohibited, has been lowered from 67 per cent to 40 per cent; a licensee must complete three years of operations before it can contemplate a merger; and the merged entity will have to pay extra for spectrum. The guidelines state that an M&A cannot take place if, during the process, the number of operators falls to less than four in a circle. In order to ensure that M&As do not result in the hoarding of spectrum, the post-merger entity can be entitled to the total amount of spectrum held by the merging entities only if it has the subscriber numbers required for that quantum of spectrum.