Telecom companies can now start providing services without getting the key raw material? spectrum ?from the government. Thanks to a recent clarification ?subtly? made by the department of telecommunications (DoT), new telecom players like the realty major Unitech and Videocon-owned, Datacom, which have been granted licences but no spectrum, can start commercial operations by getting into intra-circle roaming pacts with existing operators.
The clarification dated June 12 basically allows operators to enter into mutual commercial agreements for intra-service roaming facilities with other licensed operators. With this, analysts said, the new operators without spectrum could put up mobile switching centres (MSCs) and get into pacts with existing operators for spectrum. This way, these operators can start operations, that too, without building any network by just trading in spectrum, which is otherwise not permissible. This will also ensure them a good valuation without investing much in creating any infrastructure.
According to government sources, ?issuing a clarification on this subject matter? rather than conducting an inter-ministerial exercise or referring the matter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for an expert view, is an indirect way of encouraging spectrum trading with the government not getting anything in the process.
While the finance ministry and some other wings of the government have been saying that 2G spectrum should be auctioned so that the government gets the real value for the scarce resource, communications and IT minister A Raja has consistently maintained that auction would lead to legal complications.
However, the move is expected to ease pressure on the government, which though has allotted dozens of licences, has not much additional spectrum available to allot to the new licensees. This move was undertaken to overcome the spectrum crunch, a DoT official explained.
