Spectrum release delayed till August

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Making matter worse for the telecos, defence is likely to delay the release of the extra spectrum till August.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had initiated the process of vacating 42.5 MHz of spectrum from the defence forces to mitigate the spectrum crunch of the mobile industry. However, the deadline for releasing the spectrum is likely to be extended till August.

“We do not see any announcements coming within this month as the defence forces are yet to give consent to the release of the spectrum. We are working on it and are looking for early release of the spectrum,” a senior DoT official said. It may be mentioned here that the first meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM), which was scheduled last month, to discuss about the spectrum release had also got cancelled.

The telecom regulator had submitted its recommendations to the department in September 2006 for releasing 25 MHz of 3G spectrum in the 2100 MHz frequency band for auction to five mobile operators. And the rest 20 MHz would be allocated to the existing service providers according to the terms and conditions of the license. However, recently DoT officials had informed that the defence has agreed to vacate 42 MHz of spectrum by July.

At the current state the expansion plans of the mobile operators are hit due to lack of spectrum. Hutch-Essar scheduled to launch services in six more circles have been hit due to the inability of the government to release the adequate spectrum. This has also delayed the launch of the 3G services in the country.

In midst of the tussle between the Defence and the Communications Ministry on the release of the spectrum, A. Raja, Union Minister for Communications and IT had met the Prime Minister to apprise him of the current spectrum crunch.