Reliance Communications may have drawn the short straw in the forthcoming spectrum auction but other companies are also complaining about shortcomings and felt the Government must come up with innovative solutions, said officials of two telecom companies and one from an equipment supplier.
As a way out, these companies are suggesting that the spectrum occupied by the defence services could be put up for auction bloc while they could be shifted to another band. But a Department of Telecom official, when asked to comment, said bargaining with a third agency entailed uncertainty about when they would shift to an alternate spectrum and therefore their spectrum cannot be put up for auction.
Responding to this reasoning, the official from the equipment manufacturing multinational felt a way out could be found by offering the frequencies being utilised by defence services for auction and making the actual allocation after they are made available to private operators.
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"There is a flaw in the entire exercise. It seems the DoT, Wireless Planning Cell and TRAI are not on the same page. The absence of a Member (Technical) in DoT is also not making things better," said an official from an Indian telecom services company.
"According to me it is unethical to take money and give spectrum which is not get translated into a contiguous network. Most of the operators need more pairs and spots. There is a total mismatch in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of a digitally connected India and the execution," said an official from another telecom operating company.
Of all the companies, Reliance seems to be in the worst spot as it is in a must win situation in four circles otherwise it wont be able to operate services. Bharti is also in a tight situation in Punjab but a rival operator believes that it has some leeway and could extricate itself from a bad situation. Other companies in a similar situation are Vodafone in Gujarat and Maharashtra and Idea in Gujarat and UP (West).
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All these companies will be competing for some of the 29 licenses given in 1995-1996 that will expire in December 2015 or April 2016.
As things stand, in the 900 MHz band of which, according to WPC, 135 MHz is available in contiguous blocks of 5 MHz but 49 MHz spectrum is non-contiguous.
The TRAI has already suggested that the Government should also put on auction one block of 5 MHz contiguous spectrum in the 900 MHz band in the shortfall areas by redistributing the spectrum and other Government users in Punjab, additional spectrum of 1 MHz in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and 0.6 MHz spectrum in West Bengal in the 900 MHz band. The Government is also auctioning spectrum in the 1800 MHz band but part of it is with the Defence Ministry.