The Hindu Business Line : Finance Ministry wants early 3G spectrum auction

New Delhi, Oct. 15 The Finance Ministry has expressed its concern at the delay in finalising third generation mobile services policy and has called for a meeting with the Department of Telecom to fix the schedule for spectrum auction.

This comes even as reports suggested that the global financial crisis may force the Government to rethink on the auction. While the Government is hoping to get as much as Rs 40,000 crore from auctioning broadband and 3G spectrum, some of the telecom players have raised apprehensions in raising the money for the bidding due to the liquidity crunch.

‘No delay’

However the Communications and IT Minister, Mr A. Raja, said that there was no delay in the auction as of now. DoT has finalised Rothschild as e-auctioning agency to conduct auctioning of spectrum.

The Minister had earlier indicated that the auction could take place in December. “There is no move to delay the 3G auction process. However, if the situation warrants, I will take it up with the Prime Minister,” Mr Raja said.

The telecom industry is divided on the timing of the auction. GSM operators said that only one CDMA operator wanted to scuttle the 3G auction process. The Cellular Operators Association of India has written to the Government that there should not be any delay in the auction.

Differing views

GSM operators, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, want to get into the 3G space quickly in a bid to ramp up their falling average revenue per user and quality of service.

However some of the CDMA operators have raised some concerns in the 3G policy. In a fresh note to DoT, the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers (AUSPI), representing the CDMA operators, said that the 3G auction should not be held until issue relating revenue separation was resolved.

It said that revenue separation between 2G and 3G services, as allowed by DoT, was impossible to achieve since the two technologies was interoperable with each other.

The Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, is likely to meet DoT Secretary this week to discuss the future course of action.