Assocham asks Defence Min to free spectrum for telecom sector

Industry chamber Assocham today said it has asked the Defence Ministry to release about 650 Mhz of spectrum for telecom services to help meet the country's objective of expanding broadband services.
"ASSOCHAM has suggested the Defence Ministry to release spectrum for commercial use minimum quantity of 112 MHz out of 500 MHz (900 MHz band type), 135 Mhz from 1650 MHz (1800 MHz band type) and 415 Mhz from 1320 MHz (2100 MHz band type) with a view to achieve India's mobile broadband objectives," Assocham said in a statement.
It said that in a representation, the industry chamber has stated if the suggested spectrum was put to auction even at the reserve price of earlier auctions, the total auction collections will easily exceed budgetary estimates.

"The unlocking of the proposed spectrum for mobile broadband has the potential of closing fiscal deficit by 0.4 per cent for the current fiscal, and by recurring sums over the next 19 years, and providing an enduring uptick to the national GDP of between 0.6 per cent and 1.2 per cent," the statement said.
The chamber said that large swathes of mainstream commercial spectrum bands with developed eco-systems are currently being occupied by Defence whose utilization is limited only to selected locations within a service area by Defence.
"The assignments to Defence within these spectrum bands have been done in a manner which has divided the rest of the band into small chunks, rendering much of such spectrum unusable for 3G and 4G services which require contiguous allocations," the statement said.

Assocham said it is also an equally well known fact that telecom penetration has a multiplier effect on GDP growth.
It cited a study by research firm ICRIER which concluded that with 10 per cent increase in mobile penetration, state domestic product in India rises by 1.2 per cent.
"Therefore, it is imperative that this valuable national resource of spectrum is harnessed and put to the best possible use at the earliest to deliver on the mobile broadband objective of the government," the statement said.