The Hindu Business Line : GoM meeting on spectrum put off till Sept

Waiting on the line
DoT has an in-principle agreement with the Air Force to vacate about 42 Mhz spectrum.
It is working on a plan to allocate it as soon as the radio frequency is available.
Aircel, Idea among those in line waiting for spectrum allocation.

Thomas K. Thomas

New Delhi, July 10 The meeting of the Group of Ministers looking into spectrum related issues has been put off till September.

This comes after the Union Communication and IT Minister, Mr A. Raja, urged the Prime Minister to hold the meeting of the GoM only after issues related to spectrum vacation by the Defence and the Department of Space is reconciled.

This would mean that mobile operators will have to wait for another few months before they can hope to get additional spectrum. Senior DoT officials said that discussions are being held with the Defence to get the spectrum vacated at the earliest.

“Once a solution that is acceptable to all the stakeholders is found, we will take it to the GoM to work out the modalities. Having a GoM meeting before reconciling these issues will not make any sense,” said a DoT source.

Although the GoM, headed by the External Affairs Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, was set up almost a year back, not a single meeting has taken place.

Mobile operators are facing a severe crunch in spectrum, which in turn is affecting the quality of services. Most operators have packed in more subscribers than the benchmark levels for the given spectrum.

Meanwhile, DoT has got an in-principle agreement with the Air Force to vacate around 42 Mhz spectrum over the next few weeks.

Sources said that DoT is already working on a plan to allocate it as soon as the radio frequency is available. There are a number of operators in line for the spectrum including Aircel and Idea who were given new licences in December 2006 but have not been able to commence operations due to lack of spectrum.

Existing operators such as Airtel and Hutch have also put in the application for additional spectrum.

The GoM is expected to draw a long term plan to make available radio frequency to all users in a more organised way.