Rethink cheap spectrum: Trai told

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Commission on Thursday decided to send back to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for reconsideration its recommendations to reduce the reserve price of spectrum by up to 46% in the forthcoming auction scheduled to take place next January.

On Tuesday, a department of telecommunications (DOT) panel questioned the regulator’s method of fixing the new reserve price that reduced by 46% to ₹7,860 crore the reserve price for pan-india 5 MHZ spectrum in the 1,800 Mhz band compared with the price fixed in the auction held in November last year.

“By and large, we have gone through all recommendations. On some, we have sought clarification and further views of Trai,” telecom secretary M F Farooqui told reporters after the meeting. “I don’t think that just because we have sought clarification means that we have not agreed to Trai recommendations.”

The next meeting of the Telecom Commission will be held on October 29. “Based on Trai’s reply, the commission will take a final decision on October 29. We will try to conduct the auction by December or January,” said Farooqui.

Earlier, the DOT panel has pointed out that there was no clarity on various assumptions taken by Trai in calculating the reserve price. It had said that the government received bids for all the circles in all service areas except Delhi, Mumbai, Karnataka and Rajasthan in the first auction. “It cannot be said that this was not in accordance with their business case,” said the panel report.

The DOT panel had also objected to Trai’s recommendations on increasing annual spectrum usage charge for 4G operators to 3% of annual revenue from 1% saying that this was against auction conditions.

The regulator had given recommendations on spectrum in the 1,800 Mhz band for pan-india operations.