The Hindu Business Line : DoT to audit spectrum use by mobile operators

New Delhi, July 24 In a move to check hoarding of spectrum by mobile operators, the Department of Telecom is undertaking an audit to gauge efficiency in using radio waves.

It has mandated its technical wing the Telecom Engineering Centre to undertake the survey across the country. The TEC will be supported by the Wireless Planning and Coordination wing of the DoT.

The move assumes significance in the light of recent submissions made by various operators including Reliance Communications that GSM operators in the country were not using a limited resource such as spectrum efficiently.

Additional spectrum

The survey comes at a time when the department is internally discussing a policy on allocating additional spectrum to mobile operators.

Cellular operators have been demanding additional spectrum on the grounds that they have packed in more subscribers than the permitted standards.

With subscriber base growing at more than 5 million a month, GSM-based cellular operators said that they would need more spectrum to meet the demand. Other operators such as Reliance have, however, pointed out examples where operators in other countries have much higher subscriber base on a per Mhz basis. Tata Teleservices has also pointed out that the current method of allocating frequency based on subscriber base was flawed as it offered incentive to operators to be less efficient by declaring a higher subscriber base to get more spectrum. The GSM operators, however, say that there is a genuine lack of capacity.

Scrutiny

As part of the audit, the DoT will examine operator’s in-building solutions as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India recently pointed out that more than 60 per cent of all calls originate or terminate within a building.

The audit team will also check the density of base stations set up by operators, network architecture and whether operators have deployed adequate technology that result in optimum and efficient spectrum utilisation.

The results of the audit will have a major ramification on the future spectrum allocation policy.

With the Government finding it difficult to make available fresh spectrum, it is now looking to adopt ways to clamp up the demand. This includes putting a cap on the number of operators, asking operators to pay an upfront fee for additional spectrum beyond 6.2 Mhz and auctioning the available spectrum to keep out non serious players from hoarding it.

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