Defence may not have enough spectrum

The much-speculated spectrum to be released by the Ministry of Defence for civilian use may not be as substantial as expected. A senior official of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) today said that the defence ministry does not have too much spectrum, hence it would be difficult for them to vacate.

“There is no spectrum available in the 1,800 and 900 Mhz bands,” he added. In cities like Delhi and Mumbai, which have achieved very high levels of mobile penetration, there is a scarcity of spectrum. It is very difficult to get any spectrum for Delhi or Mumbai, as these heavily populated metros have utilised all the available spectrum,” the official said.

The DoT has already allotted spectrum to the new operators in some states in the south, he said.

The telecom department, which has been pushing the ministry to release additional spectrum of 40 Mhz, has revised the demand to about 25-30 Mhz.

Meanwhile, on the sidelines of a telecom summit today, Communications and Information Technology Minister A Raja said that the talks with the ministry were still on to discuss the vacation of spectrum for civilian use.

“Talks are going on with the defence ministry. The National Security Advisor is on the job. We are probably going to meet next month over this issue,” he said.

The minister also clarified that additional spectrum could not be auctioned due to regulatory constraints. “It cannot be auctioned because the licences that were given in 1995 had contractual obligations to be given spectrum beyond 4.4 Mhz. I cannot change licence conditions,” he pointed out.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has been comtemplating auctioning of all spectrum as opposed to the current policy of bundling it with a 2G licence. This would require the delinking of the allocation of spectrum from the licences.