DoT asks DefenceMin to justify demand of more GSM spectrum

DoT has asked ministry of defence to provide justification, the ministry et to reply

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has asked for telecom spectrum in the 900 MHz band, to use for a vehicular-based GSM network for the army.

It asked the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to allocate spectrum of one pair of 1.2 MHz for the Delhi telecom zone and one pair of 2.4 MHz pan-India, either in the 890-915 MHz frequency band  or in 935-960 MHz, commonly identified as the 900 MHz band.

DoT, however, asked it to justify the request for GSM in the 900 MHz band. MoD is yet to reply.

According to a recent communication, the MoD had never earlier projected the requirement of airwaves in the 900 MHz band. So, the 900 MHz band was not included in the ‘Defence band’ being formulated. This band has 150 MHz in the 1,700-2,000 MHz band, 20 MHz in 2,300-2,400 MHz and 15 MHz in 698-806 Mhz. For, MoD had earlie said it would require airwaves in 1920-1980 MHz or 2,110-2,170 MHz band for third-generation (3G) services, the 2,300-2,400 MHz band for broadband wireless access (BWA) services and the 698-806 MHz band for long-term evolution (LTE) services.

However, DoT also said in a recent communication that it could consider a specific request to allocate spectrum outside the defence band on a case to case basis, after it got details from the MoD.

According to a separate note, the requirement of 2.4 MHz in the 900 MHz GSM band for pan-India cannot be considered due to existing allotments.

On the other hand, a 1 MHz band is available (912.4-913.3 MHz) that the fovernment can assign to MoD in the Delhi telecom zone only, according to a recent discussion. The railways use the 913.4-914.8 MHz band across India.

Last week, Sam Pitroda, advisor to the Prime Minister on public information infrastructure and innovations, had reportedly said the government should initiate measures to get the defence, space and broadcasting agencies to vacate 100 MHz of airwaves for various mobile services.

He had urged the PM to constitute an Empowered Group of Ministers to work out how this was to be done.

MoD had earlier released 20 MHz of second-generation (2G) spectrum and 25 MHz of 3G spectrum.