DoT to Seek Trai's Views on Liberalisation of 800MHz Spectrum

The Department of Telecom (DoT) will seek sectoral regulator Trai's views on liberalisation of 800MHz spectrum in circles where market determined price is not available.

Inter-ministerial panel Telecom Commission, the highest decision making body of DoT, in its meeting earlier this week decided to seek views of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on the matter, sources said.

The government has already issued guidelines to liberalise the administratively alloted 2G spectrum, allowing operators to offer latest mobile services, including 4G, using the same radiowaves.

The spectrum will be liberalised for the remaining period of the licence terms held by the telecom operator. The telecom operator will have to pay auction determined price prorated for the balance validity period, as per the guidelines.

The government will levy latest auction determined price on the spectrum to be liberalised. In case auction price is more than one year old then the prevailing market rate would be determined by indexing the last auction price at the rate of SBI prime lending rate.

However, there are four circles where an auction determined price is not available and the DoT has asked Trai to recommend its views for liberalisation of spectrum.