The Hindu Business Line : Tata Tele against sharing infrastructure for 3G services

Tata Teleservices has rejected the proposal being considered by the telecom regulator to allow operators to share infrastructure in case all the operators are not given spectrum to offer 3G services. The Cellular Operators Association of India, representing the GSM operators, has on the other hand supported the proposal.

"One theoretical possibility is that of operators sharing radio access network, but having their own core switching. We believe that only one GSM vendor is working on such a possibility. No CDMA equipment vendor is offering such possibilities and there is no real life example of operators using this method," Tata Tele said in a letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

The Tatas said that while sharing was possible through MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) type of arrangements, it has been successful only where the infrastructure provider and virtual operator have mutually negotiated commercial arrangement.

"We are not aware of any case where it happened through regulatory mandate. We believe that it would be almost impossible to implement a regulatory mandate. We do, however, favour re-sale of services, and welcome the idea of MNVOs in India to ensure that infrastructure created and spectrum allocated to service providers are fully utilised," Tata Tele added.

Inadequate spectrum

The TRAI has indicated that it may suggest a selection process for choosing 3G operators since the demand for spectrum was more than the supply. "In the event there is inadequate spectrum available for all the operators, then the Government should assign spectrum to the operator who pays the highest revenue share in addition to the entry fee of Rs 1,500 crore.

"The government should invite bids only from those operators who have agreed to pay Rs 1,500 crore as an entry fee. Depending on its availability, spectrum can be assigned to other operators at the revenue share committed by the highest bidder," the Tata letter said.