The Hindu Business Line : GoM on telecom to meet on Feb 20

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New Delhi Feb. 4 The Group of Ministers (GoM) on telecom will hold its first meeting to discuss the spectrum policy on February 20. The GoM headed by the External Affairs Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, will discuss modalities of getting the radio frequency vacated from the defence forces and re-allocate it for commercial use. The Department of Telecom is also likely to give a presentation on how the spectrum should be vacated. The Defence Minister, Mr A.K. Antony, and the Minister for Communication and IT, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, are also part of the five-member team.

The GoM has not been able to meet so far because of the busy schedule of the Ministers involved. The Prime Minister formed it in the second half of last year because the defence agencies and the Telecom Ministry could not agree on the modalities. While defence is the largest consumer of radio frequency, the growing cellular user base has created a spectrum crunch for mobile operators.

Defence forces have said that they cannot give up radio frequency because they need to deploy the latest wireless communication techniques to safeguard the nation's security concerns. The DoT, on the other hand, has proposed laying an optic fibre cable exclusively for defence's communication, which would enable the armed forces to vacate radio frequency. The defence forces are asking for an exclusive band for their use.

The GoM will also discuss ways to fund the rehabilitation of the armed forces communications systems if they were to vacate spectrum in favour of mobile operators. Cellular operators have been waiting additional spectrum as most of them are running beyond capacity in at least 20 cities.

There are also new entrants such as Idea Cellular, Aircel and Spice who have applied for spectrum in areas where they do not have operations yet. Aircel, for instance, was given licences for eight new circles but has not been able to launch their service due to non-availability of spectrum, the basic raw material for cellular service.

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