Trai Recommends Spectrum Reserve Prices for 7 Bands

The Indian telecom regulator on Wednesday issued its recommendations on valuation and reserve price of spectrum in the 700, 800, 900, 1800, 2,100, 2,300 and 2,500MHz bands.

According to an official statement in New Delhi, the sector regulator recommended that entire available spectrum (2x35MHz) in the 700MHz band should be put to auction in the upcoming auction.

It recommended that spectrum in 700MHz band should be offered in the block size of 5MHz (paired). "In case a TSP is able to win more than one block of spectrum in the upcoming auctions, it should be allocated spectrum in contiguous blocks."

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommended that the entire available spectrum in 2100MHz band should be put to auction.

The Trai had issued a consultation paper on it in November 2015 seeking stakeholders' comments.

The government is likely to go for the next round of telecom spectrum auctions around May-June this year, Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg said in New Delhi recently.

The industry expressed its satisfaction over the regulator's decision to hold the auction. However, it expressed concerns over the steep pricing of 700 and 2,100MHz, which will be the much sought after bands.

"We are happy that another round of auction will take place. It will help in removing the supply constraint. But the prices of the 700 and 2,100MHz are too steep for the industry. We expect most of the activities in these two bands," Rajan S.Mathews, director general, Cellular Operators' Association of India, told IANS.

The Trai recommended reserve price of Rs. 1,595 crore for 700Mhz and Rs. 554 crore for 2100MHz in the Delhi circle. Both 700 and 2,100MHz are of utmost importance to the industry stakeholders as these two bands are carriers of third generation (3G) and fourth generation (4G) telephony.

He said the regulator has indicated that it will put 60 percent more spectrum in auction than the current holding across all the bands.

At present, the total holding of spectrum across all the bands is between 2,700-3,000MHz.

The authority also recommended that Department of Telecom (DoT), in coordination with defence and the telecom service providers (TSP), should complete the harmonization process in the 1,800MHz band before upcoming auctions so that the entire spectrum that is made available due to this exercise is placed for bidding.

"The available spectrum must be put to auction in contiguous blocks, preferably in the block of 5MHz."

The regulator suggested that spectrum in the 2,300MHz and 2,500MHz bands should be put to auction in the block size of 10MHz (unpaired).

Currently, spectrum trading in 2,300 or 2,500MHz band is permitted in the block size of 20MHz.

"The authority also recommends that after network synchronisation of all the TDD (time-division duplexing) networks, spectrum trading in 2,300 or 2,500MHz band should be permitted in the blocks of 10MHz."

The Trai recommended that existing provision of a cap of 25 percent of the 'total spectrum assigned' in 700/800/900/1,800/2,100/2,300/2,500MHz bands and 50 percent within a given band in each of the access service area shall apply for total spectrum holding by each TSP.