Tata Tele renews attack on GSM providers

Responding to media reports, Anil Sardana, the managing director of Tata Teleservices, reasserted for his company that incumbent GSM telecom operators were indeed hoarding spectrum.

“Such operators should now clearly refrain from making such loose statements, and be watchful about resorting to such vested arguments. It is because of such misinformation that Tata Teleservices has suffered all this while, merely seeking a level playing field,” said Sardana in a media statement.

Sardana’s statement comes after a strong denial of the charge by Vodafone-Essar managing director Marten Peters. He said the charge from some competing operators that his company and other GSM operators were hoarding spectrum was ridiculous. The debate started after Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, in a TV channel interview, said GSM incumbents were doing so.

Sardana pointed to support from reports by both the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG). Both, he said, have noted that some incumbents are holding excess spectrum, which should be paid for, beyond the 6.2 MHz sanctioned by the license conditions. “Such operators need to refer to and carefully read the CAG and Trai documents,” Sardana said.

Yesterday, Vodafone had said Ratan Tata’s charge of spectrum hoarding by important companies and of CDMA providers being discriminated against were ‘ridiculous’. And, that the spectrum utilisation of dual technology providers was much lower than that of GSM ones.

Sardana said his company applied for a dual technology license only after the policy was announced by the government and incumbent operators, too, had the option to apply likewise.

He said they’d been waiting for their legitimate right to get spectrum at Delhi and another 39 key locations for nearly three years.

“These are just delaying tactics by the incumbents, who continue to add customers and keep profiting from the excess spectrum that they have been hoarding for years now,” he added. After the sanctioned spectrum given to companies with the licence, government allots extra spectrum to operators based on the number of subscribers, at no extra cost. Tata had earlier spoken against this procedure, and said incumbents should pay for the extra spectrum.

“Hopefully, the Government will now provide start-up spectrum to Tata Teleservices in Delhi and the other districts, as it has to other operators, so that long-awaited services can be started in Delhi — and thereafter deal with the subject and not continue to deprive us any more, especially as spectrum has been vacated and is now available in Delhi,” said Sardana.