Videocon Telecom, as part of reviving its 4G plans, has initiated talks with other telecom operators for spectrum sharing deal in Madhya Pradesh including Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Haryana telecom circles.
In Punjab telecom circle, Videocon Telecom will be sharing spectrum with other telecoms to improve quality of its 2G services.
The government has announced spectrum sharing guidelines. However, several telecom operators say spectrum sharing norms are not feasible for the telecom industry to start discussions. It is widely expected that spectrum sharing among mobile service providers will reduce call drop issues.
Videocon Telecom has a subscriber base of more than 10.7 million subscribers within two years of operations.
Spectrum sharing policy allows two operators to mutually pool radio frequencies to enable them to effectively use the airwaves and enhance wireless bandwidth.
Videocon Telecom, which wants to roll out 4G LTE services, said the available spectrum of 5MHz is not adequate for both 2G voice and 4G data. It explored possibilities of rolling of narrowband 4G LTE earlier. However, Videocon Telecom dropped this plan since the technology did not evolve due to its own limitations.
As per the strategy of Videocon Telecom, it will allocate 5Mhz for 4G data and 5Mhz for 2G voice or upgrade their network to 4G, and shift 2G voice to one of the existing telecom players. Videocon Telecom and the partner operator can offer both 4G and 2G services on each other’s network and optimally utilize the available spectrum.
“Our plan is to either pool our spectrum with partner operator and allocate 5Mhz for 4G data and 5Mhz for 2G voice or upgrade our network to 4G, and shift 2G voice on one of the existing players,” said Arvind Bali, director and CEO of Videocon Telecommunications.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
