Government Should Make More Spectrum Available: Sunil Mittal

"In the 900 MHz band, only the spectrum held by them is available for the auction. These licensees will have to win back this spectrum to ensure business continuity in a licence service area (LSA). If they don't, it places the large investment made in the LSAs in jeopardy," the TRAI said.

It has set a price of 3,004 crore per mega hertz for bandwidth to be auctioned in 18 service areas for the more efficient 900 Mhz band and 2,138 crore per mega hertz for the 1,800 MHz band.

The revenue target set by the government in 2014-15 budget from spectrum auction is to the tune of 45,471 crore.

In 2013-14, the total receipts from auction were of the order of 40,847.06 crore. In February 2014, in a 10-day auction of 900 MHz and 1,800 MHz, the government mopped up 61,162 crore.

Earlier this week, Bharti Airtel called off its 700-crore deal to acquire Mumbai-based Loop Mobile.

Talking about it, Mittal said: "Loop mobile is a small issue and I don't know why this is being made into such a big issue. Most of the Loop subscribers have ported to us. It was a small deal, which was basically an experiment for the first time to acquire customers."

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