DoT to approach TRAI for CDMA spectrum auction price this week: Telecom Secretary

The Department of Telecom (DoT) will once again ask the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to recommend a base price for auction of CDMA spectrum, Telecom Secretary M F Farooqui has said.

"We will write to TRAI soon after minutes of the meeting (EGoM) are approved. Hopefully, early in the coming week," he told PTI.

The Empowered Group of Ministers, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, in its meeting on Friday decided to ask Trai for its recommendation for CDMA spectrum base price.

The regulator in its recommendations on valuation of spectrum in September had suggested no auction for CDMA spectrum (800 Mhz band frequencies) and asked the government to explore possibility of using part of it for GSM service.

In the middle of November, DoT had asked Trai to suggest a reserve price for 800 MHz band, used for offering CDMA services, within 15 days. Trai replied saying it cannot suggest a price for auction of spectrum in 800 Mhz band as the process needs to be started afresh. (Read more)

CDMA spectrum is used by Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL), Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices. Public sector companies BSNL and MTNL also have CDMA spectrum but they have offered to surrender a part of the airwaves, whereas operators like Airtel, Vodafonea and Idea Cellular are GSM-based service providers.

SSTL, which is pure-play CDMA technology-based service provider, provides services under brand name MTS. It had alleged telecom regulator Trai of favouring GSM players.

When contacted SSTL after EGoM's decision, the company said, "We look forward to TRAI to fix the  reserve price for the 800 MHz spectrum band, at reasonable level and in the same ratio as decided by EGoM in the previous auction in March 2013 so that concurrent auction of 800 MHz along with 900 and

1800 MHz could be conducted early next year."

The EGoM has approved the final price for auction of GSM spectrum at 25 per cent higher than what was suggested by Telecom Commission for 900 Mhz band and 15 per cent higher for 1800 Mhz band over base price recommended by the telecom regulator.

Mobile phone signals transmitted using 900 Mhz band frequencies reach about double distance compared to that transmitted in 1800 Mhz band. The CDMA spectrum band is also considered to be equivalent to 900 Mhz band by many technical experts.

The CDMA eco-system like availability of mobile phones is not as developed as that of GSM which dominates over 85 per cent of global telecom market.