3G auction will also include CDMA

The government has decided to auction CDMA licences for 3G services, a change in policy that means Reliance Communications...

The government has decided to auction CDMA licences for 3G services, a change in policy that means Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices will have to bid for spectrum they were previously guaranteed of getting.

No. 2 mobile operator Reliance Communications and sixth-ranked Tata Teleservices are the only operators with major CDMA operations in India, where the GSM platform dominates.

At the start of August, the government announced plans for a global auction of 3G licences. At the time only two CDMA licences were thought to be available, so the plan was that Reliance and Tata would pay a pro-rata price based on the outcome of the GSM auction, telecom minister Andimuthu Raja said on Thursday.

“Now one more operator has been permitted. So again we consulted the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) and took a decision that it can also be auctioned,” the minister said.

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