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TRAI teams up with DoT on 3G pricing
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 17 July 2008, 17:23 IST
New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has, in order to avoid any delay in the roll out of 3G spectrum, agreed with the Department of Telecom on issues related to pricing and auction of third generation mobile spectrum.
TRAI approved DOT's proposal for a higher reserve price of about Rs 2,260 crore for telecom companies that want to participate in a pan-India auction for third generation (3G) spectrum. This is exactly double the reserve price recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). In the proposal, the base price for metros and category A circles is Rs 160 crore, while for category B and C circles it is Rs 80 crore and Rs 30 crore respectively. This prices also is two times higher than what TRAI had recommended.
Taking advantage of this cordiality, in order to accelerate the allocation process, India's Telecom Commission will deliberate on the 3G spectrum auction guidelines formulated by the DoT. Telecom Minister A Raja says that the policy will be out within the next two weeks. He has already got the Prime Minister's approval to go ahead with 3G spectrum auction that is likely to see foreign players' participation in the bids.
But TRAI is not in favor of the foreign players' participation in the bid, which according to Raja, will fetch a big money to the exchequer of the country. And companies such as AT&T Inc, Deutsche Telekom AG, Etisalat and NTT DoCoMo have already expressed interest in the Indian market.
"The Authority is of the view that incidence of financial burden should be estimated in totality and isolated or piecemeal hikes with a view to mopping up additional revenue may hurt the growth of infrastructure and in the long run the telecom sector itself. However, as the reserve prices are only to fix the minimum price and the final price is determined through the auction process, the Authority in order not to further delay the process of roll out of 3G services in India agrees with the reserve price proposed by DoT." TRAI said.
However, the announcement of the policy could be after July 22, after the UPA government survives a vote of confidence in Parliament.
