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Thomas K. Thomas

New Delhi, June 29 The Department of Telecom may seek legal opinion on whether to send the entire report of the spectrum panel for review to the telecom regulator or refer only specific parts of it.

The DoT’s Spectrum Committee has suggested a complete revamp of the allocation policy by doing away with the existing subscriber-based criteria.

The panel has recommended that spectrum should be allocated through auction.

While an internal note lists only two points for review by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, a section in the DoT thinks that a legal opinion should be taken to avoid any controversies later.

A DoT note indicates that the Government is planning to ask TRAI’s views on whether unified access licence can be given out without spectrum bundled with it and if yes, at what price. But the spectrum panel has suggested many other policy changes including capping start-up spectrum for new players at 4.4 Mhz.

However, the Telecom Ministry is not in favour of changing the existing 2G spectrum allocation policy. It thinks that it will be unfair to the new players if the rules are changed now.

The industry is also divided on the various suggestions made by the panel. While existing GSM players favour pushing through with the recommendations, operators who have recently moved into the GSM space are opposing it.

If the DoT seeks legal opinion, it could further delay hopes of additional spectrum being made available to GSM players any time soon.

Going by the DoT’s position on this issue, the 2G spectrum policy may well be decided after the 3G auctions. The GSM operators have told the Government that the 2G spectrum policy should be clarified before the 3G auctions so that they can put a value to the spectrum slated to be sold in September.

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