Policy & Regulation | | Are Lessons from the 2G Scam Being Unlearned? | | TT Correspondent | | 08 May 2018 | | | as far as Spectrum is concerned, it can be allotted only by auction,” Sachdeva added.
Some DoT officials, however, are misguiding decision makers by citing the non-spectrum natural resource allocation part of the judgement with spectrum allocation (which can be done only through auction).
Earlier, former TRAI member D.P.S. Seth had told The Wire, “Supreme Court is very clear that spectrum should be allotted only through auction. Delicensing it doesn’t seem to be the correct approach.”
It may be noted that when DoT sought TRAI’s opinion on this issue, the regulator didn’t give its opinion. It simply stated:
“From letter dated 08.06.2015 it emerges that the main issue is that in view of the judgement dated 02.02.2012, whether spectrum can be allotted by a means other than auction… It is for DoT to take a policy decision as to whether it is legally tenable to allocate spectrum by any other mechanism (viz. administrative) than auction in consultation with the Ministry of Law.”
It appears that the draft policy that has all figures in USD, million and billion instead of Rupee, Lakh and Crore has only one objective of giving spectrum without auction to a few selection business houses.
Spectrum in V band and E band is important in view of the explosion of broadband services. It has high potential for providing both the high speed access services at data transfer speed of up to 7 Gbps and for backhaul spectrum. |
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