Telecom Lead India: The telecom ministry is pondering over taking back only a part of
the spectrum allocated to old telecom players and put that at the auction,
giving chance to other operators.
As per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)’s proposal on refarming,
now accepted by the ministry, old operators, such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone
and Idea Cellular, have to surrender airwaves allocated to them in 900 MHz band
on expiry of their licenses.
Along
with new operators, these incumbents have the option to repurchase these
airwaves through auction proposed in first half of 2013.
TRAI proposes models for redistribution of 900-MHz spectrum
during license renewal
According
to senior government official, the ministry has made two refarm the spectrum,
either to refarm all spectrum held by old operators above 5 MHz, or everything
above 2.5 MHz. The official, however added that spectrum above 2.5 MHz will not
be liberalized.
Under
the spectrum pricing policy, the ministry has proposed to charge for all
airwaves currently held by telecom operators at new rates and these rates will
be determined through spectrum auction due before August 31, 2012.
In
India, 900 Mhz band and 1,800 MHz band are being used for providing 2G GSM
services for mobile telephony. 900 Mhz is the premium band for offering 2G GSM
services, while 800 MHz band is being used for 2G CDMA based services.
2,100
MHz band is being used for 3G and 2300 MHz band for 4G level wireless broadband
services.
Government to get Rs 300,000 crore from refarming of spectrum
Last
month, TRAI projected that the refarming of spectrum will bring Rs 300,000
crore to the Indian government.
In
a letter to the secretary of the department of telecommunications (DoT), the
regulator said that only by refarming the government can realize true value of
spectrum in the precious 900 MHz and 800 MHz bands.
editor@telecomlead.com
