Spectrum allocation after TEC report

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The government today denied allocating spectrum to existing service providers, license holders and new license applicants on priority basis.

This comes in the wake of charges leveled by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on the government plans to allocate spectrum to service providers on priority basis.

A. Raja, minister for Communications and IT, on Wednesday said that the government will not allocate spectrum till the Telecom Engineering Center (TEC) completes the scientific assessment.

“Allocation of spectrum will be done after TEC will submit the assessment report. The report will be filed by October 30, after which a decision will be taken on it,” Raja said.

Commenting on the charges leveled by COAI on hasty decision on the new telecom license guidelines, Raja said that the government took the decision after the Telecom Commission accepted the recommendation of the regulator.

“After the regulator submitted the recommendations on use of two technologies under the same license regime, it was referred to TEC. After TEC carried out the study and accepted it, the government decided on it,” Raja said.

However, TEC also accepted the issue of enhanced subscriber linked criteria and GSM operators have taken a tough stand on it.

Raja added that the Department of Telecom (DoT) is examining the new license applications. A decision would be made within a short span, added Raja.

“With the huge number of applications from new players, the process is more time consuming. The applications are to be synchronized by a legal process and this has been referred to the Ministry of Law to get the views on it,” Raja added.