The Hindu Business Line : Spectrum application awaits panel proposals

New Delhi, Aug. 14 The Communications and IT Minister, Mr A. Raja, has put on hold all applications for allocation of spectrum until the committee set up by the Department of Telecom submits its proposals.

The committee has been set up to review the current spectrum allocation policy. The pending applications include those of Idea Cellular and Aircel which have recently been given new licences. Applications from existing pan India operators such as Bharti Airtel and Tata Teleservices have also been returned by the Minister. According to top DoT sources, 22 applications which were put up for the Minister’s approval, have been sent back to the department to be taken up after the internal committee gives its observations.

Auctioning 2G

Meanwhile, the DoT committee is looking at the option of auctioning 2G mobile spectrum. The crux of the problem is that while there are a large number of claimants for spectrum, the Government is not being able to find enough radio frequency for all. Therefore one of the options is to do away with the existing method of allocating spectrum based on subscriber base and instead ask operators to bid for it through an auction process.

This has divided the industry down the middle with the existing GSM operators wanting to continue with the current rule of subscriber-based spectrum allocation while the CDMA operators and some of the new GSM operators in favour of an auction.