No convergence between GSM, CDMA providers on spectrum allocation

07 July 2006

Mumbai: GSM and CDMA players are singing different tunes on spectrum allocation for mobile service providers. At an open house conducted by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in New Delhi, both players differed on the spectrum allocation for third generation (3G) telecom services.

While CDMA players said that sepctrum for 3G telecom services should be on the basis of 1900 Mhz band, GSM operators led by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) maintained that this particular frequency was for them.

CDMA players like Tatas differed with COAI on pricing also with Tatas favouring a one-time entry fee for 3G spectrum and COAI suggesting allocation on the basis of subscriber strength.

"We have collected inputs from all the stakeholders and are analysing it... We hope to send our recommendations to the Department of Telecom (DoT) by September," Trai secretary Rajinder Singh said.

DoT had asked the telecom regulator to rework the spectrum allocation procedures for the 3G mobile service as the earlier recommendations by Trai have not been considered by DoT.

Trai, under the chairmanship of Pradip Baijal, had earlier recommended constitution of group of ministers (GoM) to sort out the contentious issue of spectrum looking at the divergent views by the GSM and CDMA players.