3G services rollout likely to be delayed further in India

MoD Seeks More Time To Vacate Spectrum; Policy Announcement Unlikely Now

THE announcement of the spectrum policy for next generation telecom services will miss the March 31 dateline, and the commencement of 3G offerings is also set to miss the second half of 2007 time-frame set by minister for communications and IT Dayanidhi Maran.
This is the second time that India has missed the deadline to introduce 3G in the country. In this context, Mr Maran had met top DoT officials on Thursday to review the situation. Sources said Mr Maran was apprised by the delay in vacating the 3G spectrum by the defence ministry and the new steps required to enable faster vacation of this scarce resource for commercial use.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had come out with its recommendations on 3G spectrum allocation and pricing in September 2006, following which Mr Maran had said that the spectrum policy would be announced within the next three months (which was later extended to March), while adding that 3G services would be rolled out by the second half of the year.
According to sources, during Thursday’s meeting Mr Maran and DoT officials had discussed the combination of factors that were resulting in the delay, including the ministry of defence’s request for additional time of up to 390 days for vacating 25 MHz in the 2 GHz band for 3G services. Besides, the Rs 1,000-crore alternative optic fibre project for the armed forces being built jointly by BSNL and MTNL has also been delayed.
Progress on the alternative communication project has been hampered by the CVC probe into violations of the tender process by BSNL while awarding the contract. Additionally, the defence forces have also raised concerns over the quality of the alternative network saying it would not be a secure line of communication. It is estimated that building a secure network to the specifications of the defence forces will require an additional investment of Rs 2,700 crore.
On the other hand, the spectrum policy is also delayed as the DoT has decided to incorporate the inputs of the group of ministers set up to oversee the ‘vacation of spectrum and raising resources for the purpose’. However the catch is that the GoM set up on the instructions of prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2005, is yet to meet on the issue.
Another possible reason for the delay could be the DoT’s decision to address the issue of crossover spectrum allocation (where operators on the CDMA platform switch to GSM) in its spectrum policy. Trai in its recommendations on spectrum pricing and allocation was silent on this issue.

courtesy:economictimes