Technoglitch
Core Member
The Ambani brothers appear to have scored an early victory over their GSM rivals such as Airtel and Vodafone after the government on Thursday decided that telcos can share and trade their spectrum after paying the latest auction winning prices to the government.
This means that the March 2015 auction winning prices would be considered as the market determined price for the 800 MHz band, historically used for CDMA services.
Reliance Jio Infocomm and Reliance Communications (RCom), owned by Mukesh and Anil Ambani, respectively, were involved in a letter war with GSM operators, who use spectrum in the 1800 MHz band, over what should be considered market determined price for CDMA airwaves.
The government had raised nearly Rs 17,000 crore by selling over 77 MHz of spectrum in the 800 MHz band. GSM telcos, represented by their industry body COAI, had argued that in 12 circles where less than 5 MHz of 800 MHz was sold in March 2015 not enough to offer 4G services the auction winning price didn't reflect the market price as the smaller quantity had led to poor demand. By their logic, the market price should be higher.
If accepted, this could have effectively increased the amount that RCom would have needed to pay to the government to execute its proposed plan to liberalise its non-auctioned CDMA airwaves and share them with Jio to offer 4G services.
The telecom department (DoT) on Thursday notified the guidelines on liberalising spectrum in both 800 MHz and the 1800 MHz, paving the way for almost all telcos including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Tata Teleservices and RCom to share or trade their airwaves after liberalising their non-auctioned spectrum.
Only RCom and Tata Tele hold airwaves in the 800 MHz band, while the rest hold 1800 MHz bandwidth.
Telecom spectrum trading norms make Ambani brothers cheer | ET Telecom
This means that the March 2015 auction winning prices would be considered as the market determined price for the 800 MHz band, historically used for CDMA services.
Reliance Jio Infocomm and Reliance Communications (RCom), owned by Mukesh and Anil Ambani, respectively, were involved in a letter war with GSM operators, who use spectrum in the 1800 MHz band, over what should be considered market determined price for CDMA airwaves.
The government had raised nearly Rs 17,000 crore by selling over 77 MHz of spectrum in the 800 MHz band. GSM telcos, represented by their industry body COAI, had argued that in 12 circles where less than 5 MHz of 800 MHz was sold in March 2015 not enough to offer 4G services the auction winning price didn't reflect the market price as the smaller quantity had led to poor demand. By their logic, the market price should be higher.
If accepted, this could have effectively increased the amount that RCom would have needed to pay to the government to execute its proposed plan to liberalise its non-auctioned CDMA airwaves and share them with Jio to offer 4G services.
The telecom department (DoT) on Thursday notified the guidelines on liberalising spectrum in both 800 MHz and the 1800 MHz, paving the way for almost all telcos including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Tata Teleservices and RCom to share or trade their airwaves after liberalising their non-auctioned spectrum.
Only RCom and Tata Tele hold airwaves in the 800 MHz band, while the rest hold 1800 MHz bandwidth.
Telecom spectrum trading norms make Ambani brothers cheer | ET Telecom
