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| Trai defends govt's spectrum policy in Delhi HC |
| Press Trust of India / New Delhi May 31, 2009, 16:53 IST |
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In its reply to a petition submitted before the Delhi High Court, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has defended the government's move to allot spectrum with licence to new entrants on a first-come, first-served basis, saying that this would ensure a level playing field.
Trai has submitted that although it favoured the auctioning of 2G spectrum, that would have been difficult keeping in mind that players were given spectrum at different times.
Trai further contended that in the first phase, the Department of Telecom (DoT) had auctioned licences with start-up spectrum in 2001-02.
"In the 2G band, the allocation through auction may not be possible as the service providers were allocated spectrum at different times of their license and the amount of spectrum with them varies... Therefore, to decide the cut off after which the spectrum is auctioned will be difficult and might raise the issue of level playing field," Trai submitted.
In August 2007, Trai asked the DoT to determine the fresh market price of the licences.
Filing its reply to the petition of economist Arvind Gupta, who has challenged the allocation of 2G spectrum to new entrants, Trai submitted that in 2001-02 "the market price of the spectrum was implicit in the auction held for the grant if license. In India spectrum of the 2G band were not auctioned because the licenses were auctioned".
"The authority recommended in August 2007 to the central government to determine the fresh market price of the new licenses since the spectrum under UASL (universal access service licence) was bundled with the license," said Trai in the reply filed through its counsel Saket Singh.
Trai further submitted that for 3G and broadband wireless access service, it has favoured auction.
"It was therefore, recommended that in future all spectrum excluding the spectrum in the 800, 900 and 1800 bands (2G) should be auctioned...." said Trai.
In his petition, Gupta has challenged the allotment of licence to new entrants and allocation of spectrum without auction.
Gupta has further alleged that DoT allotted licences along with startup spectrum at the 2001-02 rates and the government virtually offered subsidies to the new entrants.
During the hearing on Friday, the Delhi High Court had expressed its anguish at the manner in which spectrum was alloted under the first-come, first-served policy and said "it is like selling cinema tickets".
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