Recommendations on 800 Mhz base price by month-end, says telecom regulator

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will release recommendations on the reserve price for auctioning the 800 MHz band, used for offering CDMA mobile services, by the end of this month, chairman Rahul Khullar said on Thursday. "...we hope to get 800 MHz (recommendations) out by end of the month," he said at the India Digital Summit. In December, the Department of Telecom (DoT) had asked the telecom regulator to give its recommendations on base price of CDMA spectrum. Following that the regulator released the consultation paper on the issue on December 30 inviting comments from stakeholders, and conducted an open house discussion on January 27. It was the fourth time in six months that DoT had approached TRAI for recommendations on the 800 MHz band. The telecom regulator had earlier proposed that this band need not be auctioned due to lack of demand and recommended that DoT should explore using part of these radio waves for E-GSM services. Only one CDMA player - Sistema Shyam Teleservices - participated in the auction for this band in March last year. Mr Khullar also said that TRAI will look at giving recommendations for 3G and 4G spectrum next year. "...really speaking we are looking at doing 1900 MHz, 2100 MHz and 700 MHz sometime next year," he added. He said TRAI is looking at a transition from a 2G model to a 3G model on a pan India basis. Most people access the internet on mobile devices and not as much on desktop PCs, the growth of devices will allow the businesses in digital media to grow, he further said. "A much larger number of people must have access. If they have access, you have a market, if they don't have access you don't have a market," he said. He said, however, good speed is a must for accessing the internet on mobile devices and it depends on spectrum. "Speed will critically depend on how we get spectrum." The next government has to take immediate action on spectrum availability for successful internet penetration in India, he said . As the National Optic Fibre Network project has not been rolled out as it was anticipated, internet penetration cannot take place at the desired pace, he added. "We have done a terrible job in broadband. We are nowhere near to meeting target of NOFN and unless it is done, internet penetration cannot happen at the desired pace." Stating that around 80 per cent of new internet users are coming through 2G network, Mr Khullar said there should be reasonable pricing of spectrum. "Access and speed will determine the penetration of smartphones and internet. Unless there is reasonable pricing of spectrum and making spectrum available, we will not succeed," he said. India is adding 4 million active internet users every month, Google India MD and IAMAI chairman Rajan Anandan said. "At this rate we will overtake the United States by end of this year to become the second largest internet market," Mr Anandan added.

Recommendations on 800 Mhz base price by month-end, says telecom regulator

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