In a turn of events that will definitely bother telecom operators ready to make the most of the upcoming spectrum auction, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has suggested a pretty high base price for the CDMA band. It has said that the reserve amount for this band will be Rs 3646 crores per MHz, which is 17 percent higher than what has been suggested by TRAI.
Last month, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India hinted that the base auction amount for this band should be Rs 3104 crores per MHz. Now while this value is already 15 per higher than the one suggested by TRAI itself in February this year, the fact that DoT has inflated it further, will definitely send Indian carriers into a tizzy.
The new value for the CDMA spectrum has been suggested by an internal panel from the Indian telecom department, and it’s almost equivalent to that of the premium 900MHz band. This particular band is considered more efficient than other GSM frequencies, which gives us a hint that its base cost too could see a significant rise ahead of the high-profile auction.
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An official source has told The Hindu that the DoT committee has expressed agreement to the views of TRAI which included ‘rise in demand of data services and projected subscriber growth’ as the key factors determining the reserve amount. The panel then applied a factor of 0.8 on the TRAI suggested value, thus bringing the amount up to Rs 3646 crores per MHz on a pan-India basis.
These suggestions by the panel are most likely to be placed before the inter-ministerial Department of Telecom commission for final approval on December 8.