The meeting called by the Communications and IT Minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, for discussing the New Telecom Policy 2011 turned out to be an occasion for new and old GSM operators to air their divergent views on 2G spectrum pricing.
While the incumbent GSM players, including Vodafone and Airtel, opposed the formula proposed by the TRAI, new operators backed the move to price spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz.
“I have urged the stakeholders that the captains of the industry must get together and iron out the differences among themselves because no industry can be robust if it is fractious,” Mr Sibal said after the three-hour long meeting.
But industry representatives who attended the meeting said that the operators are so sharply divided that it would not be possible for them to arrive at a consensus.
Though as many as 15 issues were discussed in the meeting, spectrum remained top of the agenda. Other issues discussed include uniform licence fee for all operators, replacing existing roll out obligations with the roll out coverage based on habitation, renewal of licences on expiry, criterion for assignment of 2G spectrum beyond initial spectrum of 4.4MHz and 2.5MHz for GSM and CDMA respectively, sharing of spectrum. Operators have been told to send their comments in writing to the Ministry after which the Telecom Commission will take a final view.
“By the end of this month, the Minister has asked us to give our recommendations to sort out differences existing in the industry,” the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) Director, Mr Rajan S. Mathew, said.
The Bharti Airtel CEO, Mr Sanjay Kapoor, said, “There needs to be a level playing field and that is what matters and that is what we as operators are demanding.”
The meeting was also attended by representatives of all the operators including Mr N Srinath, Managing Director, Tata Teleservices, Mr C S Rao, President- Corporate Affairs, Reliance Communications, Mr T. V. Ramachandran, Resident Director, Vodafone Essar and Mr S C Khanna, Secretary General, AUSPI.