Trai reiterates its proposal on MWA/MWB carriers

Telecom regulator Trai has reiterated its proposal to continue with the practice of allocating microwave access (MWA) and microwave backbone (MWB) carriers to telecom operators through administrative basis.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) had asked Trai to reconsider its recommendations with regard to assignment of microwave carriers on administrative basis, stating that as administrative allotment follows the principle of 'first come first served' and the same has been denounced by the Supreme Court in its judgement on the 2G case.
Microwave technology is widely deployed by operators to provide point-to-point radio frequency links in mobile networks.
The regulator said it is for the DoT to take a policy decision as to whether it is legally tenable to allocate spectrum by any other mechanism than auction in consultation with the Ministry of Law.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had said since the access spectrum is being assigned through auction, there seems to be no justification for another auction for the assignment of MW carriers as these will be used by only those telecom service providers (TSPs) who have got the access spectrum.
"Therefore, the Authority is of the view that the assignment of MWA and MWB carriers should continue to be done administratively," Trai had said.
Microwave carriers in the frequency bands of 10 GHz and beyond are called MWA carriers and below 10 GHz are called MWB carriers.
The Authority had said TSPs should be assigned MWA carriers as per their requirement. However, it will be subject to a ceiling on the number of MWA carriers that can be assigned to a operator.