Comments
Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram has asked the Defence Ministry to speed up the process of vacating 3G spectrum in the 2100 MHz band. Mayaram said the issue has assumed urgency as the Government will be able to garner additional revenue by auctioning the airwaves.
The Finance Ministry is hoping to get ₹45,000 crore from the telecom sector in the current fiscal year. Of this, ₹18,000 crore will accrue in the form of annual licence fees and spectrum-usage charges. Another ₹10,000 crore is expected to come in from the sale of airwaves in the 1800 MHz, 800 MHz and 900 MHz bands, assuming that the winning bidders pay only 30 per cent of the bid amount upfront.
The Finance Ministry is, therefore, worried that it may not be able to achieve its revenue target unless additional spectrum in the 2100 MHz band is sold. Auction of 3G spectrum is likely to fetch at least ₹50,000 crore for 15 MHz, going by the 2010 auction price, and one-third of that — ₹17,000 crore — could come in this year.
However, there are two hurdles before the Finance Ministry. The Defence Ministry is yet to respond to a proposal by the Department of Telecom offering a swap, whereby the armed forces vacate 15 MHz of spectrum in the 3G band in exchange for the same amount in another band.
Mayaram’s latest letter to RK Mathur, Secretary, Department of Defence, is an attempt to get the armed forces to move quickly on the matter.
CDMA hurdle The second hurdle is that the DoT believes that even if the Defence forces agree to the swap formula, the views of CDMA operators may have to be taken. This is because the spectrum band being offered to the Defence forces in exchange for 3G spectrum is earmarked for CDMA services.
But industry experts backing the 3G players say that the DoT’s stand is flawed because there are not too many CDMA operators and therefore reserving any spectrum for the segment is a waste of the resource.
On the other hand, more 3G spectrum will help operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular get access to more bandwidth and offer data services across the country.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.