The Indian Department of Telecom seems ready to put up a proposal to the cabinet regarding exclusive allocation of a separate band for the country’s defense mechanism. This is mainly being done in order to counter the spectrum crunch which is being faced by the body right now.
Issuing a separate chunk for the defense will effectively mean that whatever is currently being used by the military services will be freed up. This in turn will result in DoT being able to assign the released spectrum to commercial players like Airtel, Vodafone and more for their 3G and 4G services.
According to sources in the know of NDTV Gadgets, the creation of a new defense band will make available as much as 150MHz of spectrum from the 1700 – 2000MHz band which is being used by the Ministry of Defense right now. The body governing the Indian armed forces currently has 300MHz spectrum in its possession, and it has agreed to let go of 150MHz of it, so that DoT can assign it to telecom operators.
Also Read: DoT’s spectrum delay may lead to Vodafone, Airtel customers facing network disruptions
The creation of a separate defense band has been on the anvil since a pretty long time apparently. However, the current spectrum crunch has finally forced DoT to ask for a cabinet approval on the matter. Earlier in this month, the telecom department had revealed that part of the spectrum from the 2100MHz band that’s held by defense is what it’s eying at the moment, with an aim of using it for 3G mobile services.
There’s still no closure on the matter, but now that the Indian Department of Telecom is said to have decided to seek a cabinet approval on the defense band, we’re hoping to hear more on the matter soon.