Spectrum to be costlier for Indian telecoms

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Telecom service providers will have to shell out a lot more for the spectrum that they use as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) stood by an earlier recommendation of a six-fold jump in 2G spectrum prices Thursday.

The last award of contracted spectrum in 2008 was for Rs.1,658 crore given to new operators.

"We have clearly stated that these are estimated prices, this is what we had stated earlier also," TRAI chairman J S Sarma told reporters here.

Earlier, the telecom department had sought clarifications on the spectrum pricing from the regulator to which TRAI said: "Should the government decide to charge the spectrum beyond the initial spectrum by way of amending the licence conditions, the current price would be what has been estimated by the experts as the price of spectrum in 1,800 megahertz up to 6.2 megahertz."

Sarma stressed that if an auction is conducted, that auction price should be taken as the price irrespective or whether it is higher or lower than the estimated price.

However, TRAI also said its recommendation for pricing of spectrum beyond 8 megahertz at 1.3 times is not appropriate as it may not match the market price, so that can be done away with.

"The estimation by the experts of the value of spectrum is based on assumptions that are significant and therefore may or may not match the market price," it added.