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Vodafone seeks hands-off 3G line
By siliconindia
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New Delhi: Vodafone has warned against redistributing wireless spectrum that has already been allocated to mobile phone firms, as the debate over the overhaul of the rules for the telecom sector gets polarized between established incumbents and aggressive younger rivals.
Vodafone has told telecom regulator TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) that such a move will set a precedent for 'forcible appropriation and redistribution of spectrum' and that a more certain way to destroy all incentives for investment and innovation could not possibly be found, reports Economic Times.
As TRAI readies to rewrite the rules governing the telecom sector, older, well-established operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone are trying to preserve the spectrum that they have already got while new entrants like Reliance Communication and Unitech Wireless try to whittle down their first-mover advantage.
RCOM started delivering services based on the GSM platform only last year, while Unitech Wireless is poised to launch by the year end. The changes planned by TRAI include new regulations that will allow mobile phone firms to buy each other out and trade in spectrum. Its recommendations will be ready by December 2009 and a new policy can be put in place only before the end of the fiscal year in March 2010.
The lobbying by phone firms is also happening in the backdrop of a price war that has cut into the revenues and profits of all operators as well as the auction next month of 3G spectrum for high-speed data services. Thirteen mobile phone firms are jostling for space in the Indian mobile market and four more companies are due to launch services by next year, portending fiercer battles to win and keep customers. India currently has some 500 million wireless subscribers.
According to Vodafone, any policy which seeks to re-engineer the entire industry in order to attempt to sustain more than double the number of operators that have proved sustainable in any other market would not only be unprecedented and destructive for customers and the country, but ultimately futile.