I&B Min to vacate spectrum in 700-Mhz band

The information and broadcasting ministry has agreed to vacate spectrum in the 700-MHz band, which the department of telecommunications (DoT) plans to auction to telecom players for providing wireless broadband services, or 4G.

“The issue of spectrum in the 700-MHz band has been resolved,” communications minister Kapil Sibal said on Monday after a meeting of empowered group of ministers (EGoM) headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on spectrum vacation. “By and large, all the issues related to vacation of spectrum have been resolved. The EGoM will meet again next week.”

He said the issue over the release of spectrum in the 1700-2000 MHz, which has to be vacated by the defence forces, will also be resolved soon.

The ministry wanted to use spectrum in the 700-MHz band for mobile TV services. However, the National Frequency Allocation Plan has earmarked the band for wireless broadband, in line with international standards. The DoT has already started the process of next round of spectrum auction in broadband wireless space. Sibal had recently said in Barcelona that the government would auction spectrum in broadband wireless association (BWA) by this year-end. The first round of auction was done in June 2010, where government had auctioned two slots of BWA spectrum, which had fetched Rs 38,000 crore. Reliance Industries, through Infotel Broadband, was the only player to have taken a pan-India licence.

4G services enable data speeds many times higher than 3G. Apart from the six blocks identified, the state-owned BSNL recently-returned BWA spectrum allocated to it. That may also come up for auction.

The DoT has been asking various ministries, including information and broadcasting, defence and space, to release spectrum for use in telecom services. About 150 MHz of 2G and 3G spectrum has to be vacated by defence forces as agreed by DoT and defence. According to the eGoM agenda, the DoT had asked to terminate any existing usage in 1700-2000 MHz frequency band falling in the mutually agreed frequencies for telecom services and the spectrum would be included in the forthcoming auction of 2G spectrum.