Give reserve price of CDMA spectrum in 15 days: DoT to Trai

The government has asked telecom regulator TRAI to recommend the reserve price, preferably within 15 days, for CDMA spectrum as it has decided to auction the radiowaves in early January.

This is the third time Trai is being asked by the government to recommend the reserve price for the third round of spectrum auction.

In a letter dated November 13 to TRAI, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has said that "it has been decided that 800 megahertz (CDMA) band will be put to auction in the next round of auction of spectrum", sources said.

TRAI is requested to provide its recommendations on reserve price, preferably within 15 days, so that the auction of spectrum in 800 Mhz can also be carried out as planned in early January 2014, they said.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has asked the government to explore the possibility of using a part of CDMA spectrum for extended GSM (E-GSM) services. The watchdog does not favour auction of spectrum in this frequency band (800 Mhz) at present.

According to sources, the DoT in the letter informed TRAI that E-GSM band required vacation of spectrum by the Defence Ministry which is likely to take time and keeping unsold spectrum in the 800 Mhz band would result in forgone revenues for government.

CDMA spectrum is being used by mobile operators like MTS, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices. Dual technology players RCom and TTSL have GSM spectrum as well. Telecom operators who provide mobile services using GSM technology only include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Uninor, Videocon.

Pureplay GSM service providers have asked for 10 Mhz of airwaves frequency from CDMA band for their service.