Trai plans paper on spectrum

The document will look into issues like efficient use of spectrum and pricing

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) will come out with a consultation paper on spectrum usage and pricing this week.

"We will release a consultation paper on spectrum, which will look into issues like efficient use of spectrum and pricing," said Trai Chairman Pradip Baijal, at a conference organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci).

"Spectrum will be a scarce resource as the mobile users are growing and other possible uses of spectrum are also emerging," he said. Trai would interact with the industry on the right way forward with regard to spectrum issues, he added.

Another discussion paper on International Long Distance (ILD) and Net Long Distance (NLD) would be released by Trai in one months time, he said. Trai would also be coming out with a list of recommendations for the Cable TV network so that it could lead to the growth of broadband.

Baijal said that two major developments would take place in the telecom sector in 2004. "In 2002, mobiles took over fixed line connections globally and this year, the mobiles will take over fixed lines in the country," he said.

The second development would be private telephony taking over public telephony, he said.

On the contentious issue of sharing of Bharat Sanchar Nigam's (BSNL) telecom infrastructure by the private operators for rolling out networks in rural and remote areas, he asked the industry to come out with a master plan which would outline the co-location plans.

Rajan Bharti Mittal, joint managing director of Bharti Telecom, who also spoke on the occasion said that the Trai should help in resolving issues like infrastructure sharing, rationalisation of taxes, bundling of handsets, lowering of revenue sharing and allocation of spectrum.

"Telecom companies are facing problems raising funds from the domestic market and to remove this impediment, sectoral cap should be raised at the earliest," Mittal said.

Pointing out other problems in broadband, R Ramaraj, managing director of Sify said that since the cost of hosting Websites in the country was high, companies resorted to hosting their sites from overseas.

To encourage Web hosting from India, a proper incentive structure needed to be devised to give them a level playing field, he felt.