Resolve spectrum crunch, telco CEOs tell Prasad

India’s top four cellular operators have asked the government to work out a “practical and viable” solution to the issue of spectrum scarcity. In a joint letter to Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union minister for communications and information technology, Bharti Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal, Vodafone India CEO Marten Pieters, Idea Cellular Managing Director Himanshu Kapania and Reliance Communications CEO Gurdeep Singh, have offered some solutions to protect government earnings from spectrum sale and to ensure continuity of services.

Supporting the suggestions made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), they said conducting auctions when spectrum availability was not adequate would have serious implications on “investments, predatory pricing and continuity of services”, besides hurting the public interest.

The executives also said until adequate additional spectrum, as recommended by Trai, is made available for the conduct of fair and equitable auctions, the government could consider permitting the existing licence holders, whose term ends in 2015-16, to continue with their existing in-use spectrum.