CDMA lobby saves Rs 30,000-cr capex on excess GSM spectrum

The Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (Auspi), the lobby for CDMA operators, has said that excess spectrum accumulated by GSM players has helped them save about Rs 30,000 crore as capital expenditure.

Auspi has argued that the country’s top three GSM players — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular — are holding excess spectrum beyond their contractual limit of 6.2 MHz, which provides them a competitive advantage as investment on physical infrastructure can be substituted by spectrum.

According to Auspi secretary general S C Khanna, Vodafone Essar, in its submission to telecom regulator Trai on discussions on spectrum allocation, admitted that it would have required another 15,000 towers if excess spectrum had not been allocated.

Auspi’s response comes after Vodafone Essar wrote a letter to the department of telecommunications (DoT) saying that incumbent players pay a higher fee to the government on a per-Mhz basis and it should have the same levy for all the operators. Vodafone had said that by levying the same fee on all service providers, the government would ensure efficient utilisation of spectrum and adequate revenues.