Nine GSM players have approached the government to protest against the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's recent recommendations on spectrum allocation.
In a letter to the department of telecommunication, they have said the regulator's proposals violate the National Telecom Policy 1999, National Frequency Allocation Plan 2002 and the Trai Act.
Last month, Trai had recommended that CDMA players be allocated extra spectrum in the 800 MHz band, and that the 450 MHz band also be made available to them.
It also said the 2 GHz MT- 2000 band be made available to both CDMA and GSM players, when it was vacated by the defence services. Trai added that the current subscriber-based allocation format be replaced by a technology-neutral approach.
GSM operators have demanded that 450 MHz be equally available to both technologies. They also want the subscriber-linked approach to continue "keeping in mind the different subscriber-capacities, the investment in infrastructure and the use of capacity-enhancement techniques by both technologies".
CDMA, being five times more spectrum-efficient, will facilitate preferential and back-door entry of CDMA operators into the third generation mobile services, and create a non-level playing field for GSM operators. This has been highlighted by the Cellular Operators' Association of India, the body which represents all GSM operators.
"Trai's recommendations are surprising because it has not conducted any independent and technical exercise to support its conclusion," COAI has said in its reply to the wireless and planning commission of the department of telecommunications.
In a detailed presentation submitted to the Wireless Planning and Coordination wing of the DoT, COAI has illustrated that CDMA, with half the spectrum and less than half the cell sites, can serve as many subscribers as GSM. CDMA operators have sufficient capacity even under the existing allocation, it has said.
"Trai's recommendation will result in gross under-utilisation of this scarce resource as the regulator is effectively diluting the already lenient government criteria.
"This will give CDMA operators a carte blanche to use their spectrum in the most inefficient manner. They will continue to install far lesser number of cell sites compared with GSM operators. This will give them a huge ongoing cost advantage," GSM operators say.
On the issue of spectrum pricing, GSM operators say said under the present UAS licence, they are entitled to provide all services without any additional entry fee or one-time charge.
"The upfront lumpsum fee for IMT-2000 spectrum will increase the cost of service. It will adversely impact the government objective to reach out to rural areas and reach 250 million subscribers by 2007," GSM operators point out.
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