What spectrum gotta do with it

Spectrum is nothing but radio waves, measured in bands of frequencies. It is oxygen to communication of all kinds: Radio, television, mobile phone voice and data etc. It is finite, but distributed equally around the globe.

WHAT

Spectrum is nothing but radio waves, measured in bands of frequencies. It is oxygen to communication of all kinds: Radio, television, mobile phone voice and data etc. It is finite, but distributed equally around the globe. Therefore, companies that need frequency want as much as possible first, while the government wants to treat it like a national resource: As controlled and expensive as possible.

WHEN

Since 2005, there have been endless committees, sub-committees and Groups of Ministers trying to resolve the spectrum 8216;problem8217;. The Prime Minister8217;s Office is considering spectrum issues and so is the Planning Commission. Their priorities: To decide if spectrum should be 8216;free8217; or not, to decide what 8216;bands8217; of spectrum for 3G services ought to be given to CDMA and GSM segments. And, to decide if future spectrum allocations should be subscriber-linked, remain 8216;technology-neutral8217; or be a mix of both.

WHY

The Tata Group offered to pay Rs 1,500 crore for spectrum last year, just after the telecom regulator Trai 8216;offered8217; 3G bands for free. Trai had also said that additional telecom players should be allowed only if there is enough spectrum to go around in the first place. Tata8217;s plan 8212; to have a fees imposed 8212; would generate revenues for government and ensure spectrum has a 8216;value8217; but in the end, it could also prevent many new players from entering the telecom industry.

WHO

The CDMA industry, which gets less absolute amounts of spectrum than GSM says the government8217;s current policy of subscriber-linked allocations is a sham. 8216;Actually, CDMA is a more efficient technology than GSM, so we should get as much as GSM players do, since spectrum is a scarce national resource8217;, says the CDMA lobby. GSM players on their part say that the government cannot revise its system of subscriber-linked allocations since CDMA is more efficient than GSM and can support as many subscribers on a fifth of the spectrum.

HOW

All operators are going to rural areas to expand their networks and rope in more subscribers. For a while, they can set up more metal 8212; cellphone towers 8212; to provide and boost connectivity. But over time, there will be new demands for spectrum. In the meantime, the Department of Telecom DoT has narrowed the allocation gap between CDMA and GSM to 2:1 from the earlier 5:1 ratio. GSM still leads in subscriber additions and overall subscriber base, but the gap, say CDMA players, is narrowing.

The 6th what next

The government is not expected to be able to resolve the spectrum debate easily or soon. Neither dialogue nor policy prescriptions will help, since the spectrum squabbles overshadow everything else in the telecom sector. In rural areas, where defence equipment is not necessarily hogging the airwaves, the government is likely to free more spectrum to operators.