Telecom Commission's May 15 Meeting Deferred to Next Week

"There are apprehensions among some members that people may question the timing of meeting. Hence, it has been deferred for sometime late next week," a DoT official told PTI.

The outcome of the just concluded Lok Sabha elections would be out this week on May 16. The official added that agenda of the meeting remains

unchanged and includes discussion around status of national optical fibre network, common agenda in manifestos of Congress and BJP.

The present government has signed agreement with all states and Union territories for laying out optical fibre network except Tamil Nadu and Lakshwadweep. BSNL, RailTel and Power Grid have floated tender for various products for rolling out project.

Other important issue include spectrum sharing, auction of CDMA, telecom infrastructure in North East and status of national optical fibre network.

Under spectrum sharing, it is proposed to allow telecom operators to share spectrum with other players in the same service area with permission of DoT. Initial permission for any such sharing will be granted for five years and extended further.

For CDMA spectrum auction, sources said, a DoT panel has suggested seeking further clarifications from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). The panel is learnt to have said that it may not be possible to meet Trai's key condition of carving out a 'contiguous spectrum' in the CDMA band before auctioning the radiowaves.