Telecom companies are hoping to get some reprieve on the spectrum auction rules as the Telecom Commission sought more information from the telecom regulator.
The Telecom Commission has sought several clarifications from TRAI, including how re-farming should be done, whether all spectrum needed for the entire set of operators needs to be set aside immediately and if there was any way of optimising the process by doing re-farming progressively.
The Telecom Commission has also sought to know as to why spectrum should be set aside now if re-farming has to be done from 2014 onwards when licences come up for renewal. This would mean a lot of spectrum is idle for a long time when the immediate requirement for 2G services is also considerable.
TRAI had suggested keeping a large chunk of the 1800 Mhz band for re-farming purpose. The regulator has suggested to auction only 5 Mhz in the 1800 Mhz band initially. Telecom panel's questions are aimed at probing whether some more spectrum can be made available immediately for auction.
However, the Government does not have too much time to go back and forth on this issue as the Supreme Court has set a deadline of August 31 for the auctions to be completed.
Mr Sandeep Ladda, Executive Director, PWC India, said, “While this is a good basis for the Government to understand the rationale, however, given that the prices are way too high, and given the continuing uncertainty around the Telecom sector, it would be imperative to get a resolution around this issue quickly.”