Existing players may get spectrum first; new norms in 15 days

NEW DELHI: Government is close to finalising the guidelines for new entrants in the telecom sector, with a possibility of existing players getting priority in allocation of radio waves.

The Department of Telecom has received about 300 applications from 30 companies for starting telecom services.

Most of the ground work has been done, official sources said, adding that the DoT may announce norms for issuing licences in the next 15 days.

They said it is likely that the current first-come-first- served basis would continue for spectrum allocation even for new entrants and the existing players would get spectrum first, as and when it becomes available.

This may come as good news to the existing players like Idea and Aircel who have been waiting for the last nine months with a licence to get the initial 4.4+4.4 Mhz to start operations in several circles.

Stating that there is no spectrum to be given to such a huge number of players, the sources said the current norm of existing players getting spectrum first would continue till there was a change in the policy.

But there is a caveat. Even among the existing players, a handful of companies who have already got over 10 Mhz of spectrum may not be able to get any more. Those who have less than 10 Mhz of spectrum would be considered for additional radio waves first.

DoT is expecting that the Defence ministry would be releasing 42.5 Mhz of spectrum shortly, of which 15-20 Mhz would be allocated for metro circles like Delhi and Mumbai.

On the new guidelines, DoT is looking at various options like increasing the net worth criterion for new applicants and auctioning of spectrum.

In the new criteria, licence may not be allowed to be traded along with the spectrum as happened in the case of Hutch sell-out to Vodafone. Hutch got a huge valuation due to the spectrum it was holding in 16 circles.