The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), which is faced with non-cooperation from three GSM providers ? Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar and Idea Cellular ? in its attempt to discover pricing for 2G spectrum, has decided to give them a week to respond.
If these operators fail to respond within the time, the regulator will formulate its recommendations with inputs already received from other operators. The deadline for submitting inputs was June 15.
In May, Trai had asked for the industry’s view on its proposals that linked 2G spectrum pricing with 3G spectrum.
However, Bharti, Vodafone and Idea have said that since the regulator has not come out with a consultation paper they would not participate in the consultation process. They also say the process lacks transparency.
Sources said that other like Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices Ltd, Uninor, and the CDMA operators lobby group, Association of Unified Service Providers of India (Auspi) have already sent their responses.
Vodafone officials on Friday agreed to meet Trai officials to discuss the matter on Monday.
Trai feels that there is no need to come out with a fresh consultation paper on the subject as the one which was floated in 2009 had outlined the issues and addressed specific questions.
Downplaying the non-participation of Idea Cellular, sources said that the company has merely said that since it does not agree that spectrum in excess of 6.2 Mhz should be considered as `excess’, it does not see any sense in sending any further inputs.