Retaliating to the series of remarks by various telecom players, Reliance Communications’ chairman Anil Ambani accused GSM operators of “hoarding” surplus spectrum. He has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and sought his intervention to ensure that service providers like Vodafone and Bharti Airtel surrender the excess airwaves. In a scathing attack on GSM players, who are demanding auctioning of spectrum and have moved telecom tribunal TDSAT on new spectrum norms, Ambani said sector regulator the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), fair trade practices watchdog MRTPC and TDSAT have issued notices to Bharti and Vodafone for “anti-consumer practices”.In a letter to the PM, he cited that it is essential that the future of telecom industry is “not undermined by a few vested interest for their narrow personal interests”. Ambani’s move comes just days after GSM lobby Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) challenged the new policy of allowing dual technology for mobile telephony and new spectrum allocation norms as recommended by Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC). Reliance Communications is a key CDMA player and the first one to apply for GSM spectrum under the new norms. The firm has also announced an investment of Rs 5,000 crore to launch GSM services. Opposing the auction of spectrum, Ambani asked the Government for “a transparent framework for surrender of spectrum in a time-bound manner, wherever not utilised, as per guidelines”. He said such a route would benefit a close club of few large existing GSM players, who remain free to indulge in anti-consumer practices like cartelisation and price fixation.“A few large existing GSM players have in fact unjustifiably taken away precious and scarce spectrum in the past free of cost, far in excess of their actual requirements and far in excess of the 6.2 MHz they were entitled to under their licenses,” he wrote. The COAI petition, which earlier represented five out of the eight telecom operators, is now down to three operators, reflecting its own “lack of credibility”, he said, adding that this clearly demonstrated the misleading nature of the claims made by COAI and a few major GSM players. Ambani pointed out that although the GSM operators have been vocally criticising the spectrum allocation norms as recommended by Trai and in the TEC report, but they are yet to furnish any scientific data to challenge the revised norms. GSM operators want dilution of Trai norms and TEC, the competent technical body, report so they can get even more spectrum now and in the future, whereas the situation actually requires them to return spectrum, he said. “I am confident that, under your (Prime Minister) guidance and advise, these motivated efforts of the existing GSM players will not be allowed to succeed, and instead, the government will take all necessary steps for the accelerated growth of the telecom sector,” Ambani said.
