The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has not shut the door on spectrum leasing and is open to allowing it. However, it first wants to see how spectrum trading and sharing, for which guidelines have been issued but not yet approved by the government, is implemented and the experience arising out of them. Only then would the matter of spectrum leasing be taken up.
In an interview with FE, Trai chairman Rahul Khullar said, “I have not closed the door on spectrum leasing. But first let’s see how spectrum trading and sharing take off. Let the government first approve them so that we can see how they take off. Once the experience of their implementation and roll out is there, we would certainly look at spectrum leasing also.”
The guidelines for spectrum sharing was unveiled by Trai on Monday while those for trading were released in January. While it is still early for the department of telecommunications to decide on sharing, it has dilly-dallied on taking a decision on spectrum trading thus far. Under spectrum trading, outright transfer of spectrum is allowed, which means that the ownership of the usage right is transferred to the buyer. Once implemented, if any operator feels it has spectrum it cannot utilise properly, it can sell it to another operator after paying a marginal charge to the government. Under sharing, Trai has allowed two operators to pool together their spectrum to create greater efficiency.
However, operators feel that leasing, which has not been recommended by Trai till now, would be the best option to ease the spectrum crunch they face. Under it, the ownership would vest with the operator to whom it has been assigned but if its utilisation rate is poor, it can lease it to another operator on rental charges and take it back once it finds a need for it. This way operators whose active subscriber base is low — say 50-60% — can lease the airwaves to bigger operators with over 90% utilisation and earn revenues. It would be a win-win situation for both.
Khullar also said that operators who are upset that inter-band spectrum sharing has not been allowed — this means that operators can only share spectrum in a particular band like 800 or 1800 MHz — should wait for some more months by when the regulator would come out with the guidelines for MVNO operations.
“I could not have allowed inter-band sharing at this point of time as it would have meant allowing mobile virtual network operators, which is not allowed under the telecom policy. But a couple of months down the line we would issue recommendations on MVNO and then the matter of inter-band sharing would get addressed,” Khullar said.
MVNOs are not licensed operators but buy bulk airtime from licensed players and retail them to the consumers.
Khullar said that the caps on spectrum holding on operators could not be lifted in case of sharing or trading because the regulator cannot breach policy guidelines. However, for the purposes of calculation he has relaxed it in the case of sharing. The cap lays down that operators cannot have more than 25% of total spectrum assigned in a circle or 50% in a given band. However, Trai has said that in case operators share, only 50% of shared spectrum would be counted as additional.
On the 0.5% additional spectrum usage charge on shared spectrum, Khullar said, “I wanted to put in place a clear road map on SUC. Suggesting no additional SUC would not have been acceptable to the government and it could have levied a higher charge as was done in an earlier proposal.”
Similarly, the Trai chairman said that he did not allow intra-circle roaming for 3G services since the government has taken a policy decision for not allowing any such pacts.
Source: FE
In an interview with FE, Trai chairman Rahul Khullar said, “I have not closed the door on spectrum leasing. But first let’s see how spectrum trading and sharing take off. Let the government first approve them so that we can see how they take off. Once the experience of their implementation and roll out is there, we would certainly look at spectrum leasing also.”
The guidelines for spectrum sharing was unveiled by Trai on Monday while those for trading were released in January. While it is still early for the department of telecommunications to decide on sharing, it has dilly-dallied on taking a decision on spectrum trading thus far. Under spectrum trading, outright transfer of spectrum is allowed, which means that the ownership of the usage right is transferred to the buyer. Once implemented, if any operator feels it has spectrum it cannot utilise properly, it can sell it to another operator after paying a marginal charge to the government. Under sharing, Trai has allowed two operators to pool together their spectrum to create greater efficiency.
However, operators feel that leasing, which has not been recommended by Trai till now, would be the best option to ease the spectrum crunch they face. Under it, the ownership would vest with the operator to whom it has been assigned but if its utilisation rate is poor, it can lease it to another operator on rental charges and take it back once it finds a need for it. This way operators whose active subscriber base is low — say 50-60% — can lease the airwaves to bigger operators with over 90% utilisation and earn revenues. It would be a win-win situation for both.
Khullar also said that operators who are upset that inter-band spectrum sharing has not been allowed — this means that operators can only share spectrum in a particular band like 800 or 1800 MHz — should wait for some more months by when the regulator would come out with the guidelines for MVNO operations.
“I could not have allowed inter-band sharing at this point of time as it would have meant allowing mobile virtual network operators, which is not allowed under the telecom policy. But a couple of months down the line we would issue recommendations on MVNO and then the matter of inter-band sharing would get addressed,” Khullar said.
MVNOs are not licensed operators but buy bulk airtime from licensed players and retail them to the consumers.
Khullar said that the caps on spectrum holding on operators could not be lifted in case of sharing or trading because the regulator cannot breach policy guidelines. However, for the purposes of calculation he has relaxed it in the case of sharing. The cap lays down that operators cannot have more than 25% of total spectrum assigned in a circle or 50% in a given band. However, Trai has said that in case operators share, only 50% of shared spectrum would be counted as additional.
On the 0.5% additional spectrum usage charge on shared spectrum, Khullar said, “I wanted to put in place a clear road map on SUC. Suggesting no additional SUC would not have been acceptable to the government and it could have levied a higher charge as was done in an earlier proposal.”
Similarly, the Trai chairman said that he did not allow intra-circle roaming for 3G services since the government has taken a policy decision for not allowing any such pacts.
Source: FE
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