Delay in 3G policy hurting cellular expansion plans: BSNL

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State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has told the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that its cellular rollout plans could be put off if the policy relating to third generation (3G) services is not finalised quickly.

BSNL also blamed the Wireless Planning Coordination (WPC) wing of the Department of Telecom for causing delays in spectrum allocation, which was affecting the public sector undertaking's quality of service.

"The spectrum for 3G mobile services is in discussion for the last two years and still the issues seem far from resolved. The delay in finalisation of the criteria for the allocation of spectrum will have serious impact on the growth of mobile services," BSNL said in its response to TRAI's paper on spectrum pricing for 3G services.

Tender floated

BSNL has already floated tender for 63.5 million lines of mobile equipment based on GSM and WCDMA (3G) technology. The tender has been opened and evaluation of the techno-commercial proposal is in progress.

"The whole activity is likely to be completed soon. The non-finalisation of the policy for the allocation of the spectrum will seriously affect the rollout plans of BSNL for the launch of the 3G services as every thing will be ready except for the availability of the spectrum," BSNL said.

BSNL pointed out that in the past WPC has not been able to provide timely allocation of the additional spectrum to BSNL, which has resulted in poor quality of service to subscribers and unnecessary capital expenditure in terms of number of base stations. "More initiatives are required from licensor and regulator for the early release and allocation of spectrum in IMT 2000 band to operators, so that they can start the services early," BSNL said. The state-owned company has also opposed entry fee for 3G services.

Taken from Business Line

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