The ban made little sense in a liberalised spectrum regime, in which sharing of such resources should not be frowned upon. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has recommended that spectrum trading should be allowed. In other words, if a telco has unused spectrum in a circle, it can sell it to another operator. This will help in two ways. One, operators will use spectrum, a scarce natural resource, with greater efficiency. Two, it will help them monetise idle assets. This is likely to be part of the merger and acquisition guidelines being put together by the Department of Telecommunications. Also, when spectrum has become technology-neutral (a telcom service provider can use spectrum in any bandwidth to launch 3G services), the ban on intra-circle roaming pacts served no purpose. However, since 2100 MHz is the most efficient band for 3G services, removal of the ban will help the telcos immensely.
The TDSAT judgment comes when there are signs that the telecom sector is turning around. The extra dose of competition introduced in 2008 when A Raja was Union telecom minister had bled the industry. Tariffs had hit rock bottom. Telcos began to burn cash to acquire customers. After the Supreme Court in 2012 cancelled the licences handed out during Mr Raja's tenure, some sort of sanity began to return to the sector. In the last couple of quarters, discounts have been ended (base-level tariffs are yet to show improvement) and there has been a sharp rise in data traffic. Thus, both Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular have reported a sharp jump in earnings for the quarter ended March 2014. The government's decision to auction spectrum and delink it from the subscriber base too has helped. Telcos are no longer in a blind race to acquire subscribers. Many have cleaned up their long tail of inactive subscribers who made no contribution to their revenues. With their 3G business now all set to pick up, the sector seems to be ready for better times ahead.