The TRAI Consultation Paper released yesterday talks of the much awaited liberalization of Spectrum – which means making spectrum technology-neutral, or allowing an operator to utilize spectrum won through an auction for any technology. The consultation paper discusses this issue in detail.
The consultation paper clearly mentions that spectrum is not liberalized in India at present – Page 64, Section 3.10
spectrum assigned for mobile services is bound with the technology chosen by the licensee
This view, if endorsed by the DOT, could spell trouble for CDMA operators (BSNL, RCOM, Tata DoCoMoL, and MTS ). These operators have been using 800 MHz spectrum (assigned for 2/2.5G CDMA services) for EVDO Dongle based Data Services (3G equivalent on the CDMA side – BSNL EVDO, RelianceNetConnect Broadband+, Tata DoCoMo Photon+ and MTS MBlaze) services. This issue is already raised by the COAI and Airtel in its response to TRAI’s pre-consultation paper on spectrum auction. If spectrum has not been liberalized, this usage can be challenged.
Well, truly speaking CDMA operators are caught on the wrong foot, however, these EVDO Dongle based Data Services have been really solving the last mile broadband connectivity problem and are offering excellent services. We really hope this doesn’t go to court of law and get this band of CDMA Spectrum Auctioned as well since 3G GSM Spectrum was auctioned.