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New Delhi, March 31 The Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) on Tuesday dealt a double blow to existing GSM players. It said that GSM operators did not have the right to more than 6.2 Mhz spectrum in a circle. It also dismissed a petition filed by the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) challenging the Government’s decision to permit Reliance Communications to offer services using both GSM and CDMA technologies.

Existing players including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone have up to 12 Mhz spectrum in some circles. The TDSAT order could give the Government the legal ammunition to impose a fee on these operators for the excess spectrum they hold.

“We hold that there is thus nothing in either the New Telecom Policy 1999 document or the licence conditions or the correspondence/orders to support the contention of the petitioners (GSM operators) that they have a vested right up to 15 MHz. We hold that the petitioners do not have any vested right to receive GSM spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz,” the TDSAT said.

The order did not have much of an impact on the share price of the GSM operators. Bharti Airtel’s stocks went up 2.62 per cent while Idea Cellular’s share price was up by 1.42 per cent on the BSE on Tuesday.

Dismissing COAI’s appeal against dual technology to Reliance Communications, the tribunal said, “We hold that the concept of technology neutrality was very clearly enunciated as early as 1999 and definitely after November 2003. We do not find any ground to level mala fide intention on the part of DoT.” RCom’s share price went up by 4.02 per cent on the BSE on Tuesday to close at Rs 174.60.

The tribunal blamed TRAI for creating confusion by not interpreting licence conditions properly on a number of issues including technology neutrality, subscriber-linked spectrum allocation and permitting unlimited number of operators.

“Already, as indicated by TRAI itself, there are six to nine operators in each service area and there is demand for additional spectrum. It is therefore puzzling as to why TRAI recommended a no cap policy on the number of service providers,” it said.

On the spectrum allocation policy, the TDSAT said, “We hold that in arriving at the subscriber-linked criteria, TRAI failed to observe the principle of transparency. It is expected of institutions like TRAI to follow a uniform procedure while making its recommendations. It cannot choose the procedure to suit its convenience.”

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