The Hindu Business Line : Bharti surrenders CDMA spectrum

Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said that it has surrendered the CDMA spectrum in Madhya Pradesh to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The move will benefit CDMA operators such as Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices.

The move comes after the Government had asked a number of companies to vacate radio frequency wherever it was not being used. The State-owned MTNL has also been asked to give up excess CDMA spectrum in Delhi and Mumbai.

Bharti Airtel had received the CDMA spectrum as part of a licensing agreement in the year 1997, to offer services as applicable under the license. After the introduction of the unified access service regime, it surrendered the fixed line telephony licence. "After allowing the use of CDMA spectrum under the UAS License, the company was forced to surrender the spectrum and was also directed to pay the spectrum charges based on the combined GSM and CDMA spectrum allocated, which otherwise were to be charged separately. In addition, its request for refund of the entry fee, in view of surrender of the fixed line license was not entertained ," said a Bharti press release. Airtel customers using the CDMA platform have migrated to GSM technology.

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