Available spectrum very scarce in India: TRAI Chairman

Expressing concerns over spectrum scarcity in the country, TRAI Chairman Rahul Khullar today said the availability of airwaves in India is less than 40 per cent as compared to European nations.
"If you compare country in Europe or rest of the world which are similar in size to Karnataka or Andhra Pradesh... actually the spectrum availability is less than 40 per cent of what is available in the rest of the world, that is our one big problem," Khullar said while speaking at TRAI's consumer outreach programme here.
For the last many years, the spectrum availability has been very scarce in India, he said adding it is even less than 50 per cent of the airwaves available in China.

The spectrum auction has just been concluded and most of these airwaves auctioned were the same available in 1994, there is no additional spectrum, Khullar said.
"...So what we need to ask ourselves as citizens is - are we going to thrive and live with same amount of spectrum that we lived 20 years ago when there were hardly any connections and now when there are nine hundred million? And if you don't increase the supply of spectrum, sorry the quality of service just cannot be delivered..."
So the most important thing is that the availability of spectrum has to be increased, he added.