The recommendations of the Telecom regulatory authority of India (Trai), which raises the subscriber base limit for operators to be entitled to get additional spectrum across circles, will help new entrants and the ones in queue over the established pan-India players.
If the recommendations are accepted by the department of telecom (DoT), only Bharti Airtel will qualify for additional spectrum in Delhi leaving the field clear for players like Idea Cellular, Aircel and Vodafone Essar to get initial spectrum in the newer circles for which they are awaiting.
Even Reliance Communications, which is predominantly a CDMA player, if wants to offer GSM services in Delhi and Mumbai, will be able to get spectrum if it pays additional licence fee for it.
At present, a GSM operator having 2.1 million users in Delhi and Mumbai circles is entitled to 15 MHz spectrum subject to availability. Currently, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar have 10 MHz spectrum each in these two circles. While Bharti has a subscriber base of 3.34 million in Delhi and as per the present norms is entitled for additional 5 MHz spectrum.
However, since Trai has raised the limit from 2.1 million to 5 million, the company will end up getting just half of it. Vodafone Essar, which has 2.72 million subscribers in Delhi currently qualifies for additional 2.4 MHz spectrum but if the Trai proposal is accepted would get nothing.
For all the circles the subscriber base criteria has gone up nearly five times over existing levels. Further, by adding roll out obligations along with subscriber base to qualify for additional spectrum, Trai has further tightened the norms.
Reacting to the Trai recommendations, the Association of Unified Service Providers of India (Auspi), the association of CDMA operators welcomed the move as balanced, GSM operators association, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), expressed its disappointment over what it termed as ?extremely arbitrary and stringent?.
