Lucent Tech latest to join spectrum fray

Telecom infrastructure vendor Lucent Technologies has joined the spectrum allocation fray, saying the distribution of airwaves must be fair and equal across technologies and service providers.

According to a top company official, industry has set its sights on the 1,900 US PCS band, a section of spectrum that both CDMA and GSM operators are battling for.

8216;8216;Spectrum should be allocated at the rate of 5 MHz to each operator initially. After this the highest bidder should be sought for,8217;8217; says Dr Eshwar Pittampalli, chief technology officer CTO, Lucent Hindustan.

CDMA telecom operators claim that the 800 MHz and 1900 MHz frequency bands are best suited to their operations. Failing to provide this band may translate into not achieving the government8217;s teledensity targets, they claim.