The government will come out with guidelines for spectrum sharing and trading by the year end, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
“Guidelines will be in place by the end of the year on spectrum trading and sharing,” Prasad told reporters
In July, telecom regulator Trai had recommended that spectrum sharing should be limited to only two licensees within the same circle. No permission will be required from the government for effecting the sharing arrangement.
Also, the two telecom operators can share spectrum or airwaves, through which mobile phone calls travel, in all frequency bands (800MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz and 2300MHz), provided they have spectrum in the same frequency band.
Trai said as spectrum sharing would result in higher revenues for both the telecom licensees, they would have to pay 0.5 per cent higher spectrum use charges to the government.
Operators at present are allowed to share passive infrastructure such as mobile towers, which has helped them reduce operational costs. However, they cannot share active infrastructure such as spectrum.
For large operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, which together offer services to over half of the 910 million mobile users in the country, spectrum sharing is an opportunity to increase their capacity in dense subscriber locations that require more bandwidth.
For operators such as Tata Teleservices and Aircel, which have 50-60 per cent active users on their networks, it is a chance to monetise their unused spectrum by sharing it.
Telecom operators have for long been asking for more spectrum to resolve congestion issues in high-density areas. This move will, therefore, help them and could help companies significantly reduce cost of providing mobile services.
Trai had earlier this year come out with guidelines for spectrum trading, allowing mobile operators to buy and sell airwaves they had bought through auctions.
However, airwaves that were given as allocations by the government cannot be traded. The government can charge a one per cent fee for any airwaves traded between two firms.
Cyber security
Prasad said the government would soon start the National Cyber Co-ordination Centre to safeguard the nation’s servers and computer systems.
“We are investing Rs 800 crore for this project and soon we will have an inter-ministerial discussion before sending the proposal to the Cabinet,” Prasad said. It is expected to send the proposal to the cabinet in the next 15 days.
Source: http://www.abplive.in/business/2014/09/14/article398870.ece/New-norms-on-spectrum-soon
