BWA spectrum is available: Telecom Secretary

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Department of Telecom today said that the BWA spectrum is now available for commercial roll-out.

While interacting with the media here today, Telecom Secretary PJ Thomas said that the 3G network will be ready by September 1.

He said Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is working on alternative optical fibre cable network for defence, which is currently using the 3G spectrum, and this work will be completed in time.

Earlier there were apprehensions that the rolling out of 3G services would be delayed as defence would not be able to vacate the spectrum till it gets the OFC network ready by BSNL.

He also said that the 3G and BWA spectrum auctions have been successfully completed and have generated more than Rs. 1,06,000 crore of revenues for the Government. In addition they have been notable for the fact that they were conduced in an efficient, fair and transparent manner.

The revenue is more than 3 times the target of Rs. 35,000 crore fixed by the Ministry of Finance in its budget documents and more than five times the reserve price.

The process has successfully met all the objectives of the auctions set by Government, and while maximising revenue proceeds was one of the objectives, there were also the important objectives of ensuring competition in the sector and conducting a transparent auction process, he added.

The Telecom Secretary also said that the next auction for 3G will not happen before December 21, 2012.