New spectrum allocation plan by April 2011

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Wireless Planning Commission has started reviewing National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP), which contains the details of spectrum allocation for various services in the country.

“Though the mutually agreed timeline between WPC and stakeholders is February 2011, I expect it to be done in April 2011. WPC has started reviewing the existing plans and is interacting with all the stake holders in the country. Last week the department also held one meeting in this regard and the next meeting is scheduled on January 19 to discuss proposals of various stakeholders,” said a senior official of the Department of Telecom (DoT), who did not want to be named, in an interaction with CIOL.

In the last meeting Coral Telecom proposed earmarking of 3 MHz in the GSM 1800 MHz band exclusively for deploying in building networks and replacement of wire-line PBX. The company also proposed to de-license 3Mhz, some frequency bands 1900-1910 MHz paired with 1980-1990 MHz, in 1800 MHz band and some spectrum in ‘3G band’ for use of low-powered GSM networks based on indigenous technology for setting up private GSM networks by telecom service providers.

This proposal from Coral Telecom was opposed by the representatives from COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India) and AUSPI (Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India), but it earned support from Vihaan Networks.

A representative of Vihaan Networks in this meeting proposed for opening up the 410-450 MHz band for Short Range Devices (SRDs), development of 915-935 MHz and 1785-1805 MHz band for cellular systems, earmarking 1910-1920 paired with 1980-1990 MHz for CDMA applications, de-licensing of some bands like 622-712 MHz band for indigenous developed systems and opening-up of frequency bands beyond 60 GHz.

This proposal from Vihaan was also opposed by COAI on the ground that the operations in 915-935 MHz and 1785-1805 MHz band may cause interference with the adjacent bands by out-of-band emissions. To protect the existing services from interference, COAI suggested that detailed sharing studies be conducted before these bands were considered for cellular systems.

The GSM association also mentioned that 698-806 MHz has been identified for IMT applications in Region-3 and, considering this, 622-712 MHz cannot be de-licensed.

This revised NFAP is expected to give consideration to new technologies namely UWB, SRDs, ITS, CR, WLAN, PAN and others. IIT Mumbai has agreed to provide detailed technical details on these new technologies.

WPC has asked all the stakeholders to submit their proposal by January 15, 2011 with detailed technical justification.

At present WPC uses NFAP 2008 to allocate or assign frequency for wireless operations in the country. NFAP 2011 will help equipment makers in taking reference from and tuning their equipment as per the services that will be offered in a particular band.

NFAP 2011 will give a clear picture of the spectrum availability in the country that had been a key element in the recent controversies related to 2G licenses.