Telecom tribunal seeks govt reply on spectrum policy shift

NEW DELHI: Telecom tribunal TDSAT on Wednesday sought government response, on a plea by Idea Cellular, for changing spectrum allocation policy based on first-come, first-serve principle.

On January 10, 2008, the Department of Telecom (DoT) had changed the spectrum (radio waves) allocation policy from first-come, first-serve to first-pay, first-served basis during the regime of former telecom minister A Raja. Idea Cellular has contended that while allocating new licenses, bundled with start up spectrum, DoT had arbitrarily changed the policy by advancing the cut-off date for accepting licence applications.

The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) also issued notices to several operators — Tata Teleservices, Uninor, Etisalat DB, Videocon and Loop Telecom — who got spectrum in 2008, under Raja's regime. Idea plea has said the process of grant of UASL commences with the submission of application for issuance of LoI and culminates with the allocation of the start up spectrum.

It said the entire procedure— starting from the submission of application and culminating into the allocation of spectrum — is a single process and cannot be broken up into separate stages as was sought to be done by the DoT press release of January, 2008. Idea has alleged that the decision was taken to benefit a select few applicants— who were lower in the list for grant of LoIs.