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No auction of 2G spectrum: telecom minister
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 13 December 2007, 02:53 IST
New Delhi: Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday hinted at harnessing revenues in allocation of radio frequencies for mobile telephony, Communications and IT Minister A. Raja ruled out auctions, citing legal reasons.
"We are not adopting the auctioning route for existing 2G (second generation) spectrum due to legal barriers. But for the next generation (third generation) mobile services, the government has already announced that it will be allocated on the basis of auction," Raja said on the sidelines of the India Telecom 2007 conference.
However, according to the prime minister, allocating spectrum provides opportunities for the government to harness significant revenues, which is a common practice the world over.
"Governments across the globe have harnessed substantial revenues while allocating spectrum," Singh said in his inaugural address at Indian Telecom 2007 here.
When asked to comment on the remarks made by the prime minister, Raja said: "We already have annual license fee based on a percentage of AGR (adjusted gross revenue) and we are also going to auction spectrum for 3G services."