Trai won't allow spectrum sharing

NEW DELHI: Telecom regulator Trai, in its upcoming recommendations on infrastructure sharing, will not allow mobile service providers to share the spectrum allocated to them, although the move will make operations more economical.

The reason: Ensuring quality of service and other parameters when operators share spectrum will be very difficult and this model does not provide an easy exit path in case of disputes between the service providers. More importantly, international experience has shown that spectrum pooling has not been permitted in any country so far.

Trai is therefore of the view that if service providers were permitted to pool or share the spectrum then the group can get added advantage in deployment of services. In such a scenario, level playing field is disturbed and one service provider may be better placed as compared to its competitor, Trai said.

Spectrum or radio frequency is a scarce resource, which is considered as the lifeline of mobile services. Limitations in the availability of this resource has prevented many operators from expanding their operations to more circles, delayed the roll-out of 3G services in India and has also resulted in deterioration in the quality of telecom services, especially in the metros.

However, Trai in its recommendations, which is likely to be made public on Tuesday, will permit operators to share other active infrastructure such as antenna, feeder cables, node B, backhaul and transmission equipment.

Currently, operators are only allowed to share passive infrastructure means which includes physical sites, buildings, shelters, towers, masts, power supply and battery backup. While passive sharing enables telecom companies to share over 30% in both capex and opex spending, service providers said that this figure could touch 50% when active infrastructure sharing is also shared.

Additionally, active infrastructure sharing between operators will also result in better roaming services. This is because, this will allow an extended version of radio access network sharing (RAN) between service providers which will enable them to provide mobile services to their subscribers wherever their own network signal is not available or weak. This will also help telecom companies to increase the coverage area and quality of service. with almost no additional expenditure.

Abroad active infrastructure sharing is taking place in some countries, but only in a limited way through mutual agreements reached between service providers. Besides, in these countries, no regulatory interventions have been made except that such sharing is permitted.

In fact, Trai too has pointed out that sharing or pooling of spectrum is a complex model of infrastructure sharing, which will not be successful without close association and coordination between different mobile companies.

joji.philip@timesgroup.com