“At the minimum, the DoT should adopt the TEC-recommended and already approved spectrum allocation criteria,” Naidu said in a letter to the PM.
Former Andhra CM sends another letter to PM, wants spectrum norms to be further tightened
NEW DELHI: In his second letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh within a week, former Andhra Pradesh chief minister Chandrababu Naidu has said that the government must tighten the subscriber-linked spectrum allocation norms many times over.
The norms, recommended by the Telecom Engineering Centre, the technical wing of the Department of Telecommunications, are being opposed by GSM players like Bharti,
Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular for their stringent subscriber-linked criteria.
But Naidu is seeking the PM’s intervention to get the TEC criteria tightened three to four times.
In a letter dated December 4, Naidu said that a large number of technology innovations have come up during the last few years, “and if these are deployed by Indian operators, not more than 6.2 MHz spectrum is needed for achieving the desired objectives”.
“At the minimum, the DoT should adopt the TEC-recommended and already approved spectrum allocation criteria,” Naidu said.
This is the line of thought of CDMA players as well, as against the resistance of GSM firms to the TEC norms.
Once the TEC criteria are accepted, around 3-4 new operators can start offering their services with the available spectrum, Naidu has stressed. “This will yield for the Centre Rs 6,500 crore as entry fee and up to Rs 20,000 crore as direct and indirect taxes on full rollout of network by new operator.”
Naidu has written to the PM that the government must consider certain facts before making its policy decisions “in the interest of the telecom sector”.
Backing the demand by CDMA players that extra spectrum must be returned by GSM firms, Naidu’s letter points out that “dominant GSM operators added over 50 million subscribers in the last 18 months without additional spectrum”.
According to the Telugu Desam Party president, “It meant that they not only had enough spectrum to manage the existing operations but also some excess spectrum, which they should be asked to surrender.”
The TEC criteria for subscriber-linked spectrum allocation are about 1.2 times those of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) rules across 17 circles. In six circles, the TEC criteria are less stringent than Trai’s.
In his earlier letter to the PM, dated November 27, Naidu had said, “It is important that India’s telecom sector is not derailed by some skewed policies, especially in spectrum allocation”.
Currently, the dearth of spectrum or airwaves is being seen as a critical issue in the telecom sector, leading to call drops and operators failing to launch services in new areas. Availability of sufficient spectrum is essential for the smooth operation of wireless services.
India has been adding 7-8 million mobile subscribers every month, but operators are demanding more spectrum to meet quality standards. There are over 215 million mobile users in the country now.
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