The Hindu Business Line : TRAI draws the ire of both camps

THE spectrum policy recommendations announced by the telecom regulator has evoked sharp reactions from the telecom industry with both the GSM and the CDMA operators claiming that the suggested measures favoured the other. The two warring sides have accused the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India of undue bias towards the other party.

"The current recommendations only ensure that India will become an isolated island in the wireless world of mobile telecom because the TRAI's recommended spectrum allocation only favours the GSM industry where equipment and handsets are already available to offer GSM-based 3G services," the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers (AUSPI), representing CDMA operators, said.

The CDMA operators are upset over the fact that RAI has decided to allocate spectrum for 3G services in the 2000 Mhz band. They, including Reliance Infocomm and Tata Teleservices, had wanted spectrum in the 1900 Mhz band.

On the other hand, the rival Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) criticised the TRAI's suggestion that the CDMA operators be given additional spectrum within one month. "Any provision of additional carriers now to CDMA operators without ensuring optimal use of existing assignments would be grossly anti-competitive, as it would enable them to immediately offer 3G services through the back door,'' said Mr T.V. Ramachandran, Director-General, COAI.

GSM operators are concerned that Reliance Infocomm will be able to offer 3G services on the EVDO platform within a month's time while operators such as Airtel and Hutch will have to wait till the Government allocated frequency in the 2000 Mhz band. TRAI has set a time frame of December 2006 for the allocation of spectrum in the 2000 Mhz band while the CDMA operators may get additional capacity much earlier.

The AUSPI pointed out that the GSM operators were already getting 15 Mhz radio frequency while the CDMA operators were getting 5 Mhz and, therefore, TRAI was right in allocating additional frequency to the CDMA players.

Mr Ramachandran, representing the GSM interest, countered that the CDMA operators themselves had made written submissions that the CDMA spectrum had over 5 times the capacity of GSM spectrum and therefore, there was no case for additional spectrum.

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