J S Sarma, Chairman Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) has said that the regulator would be able to give recommendations on the auction of spectrum before 15 April 2012.

The recommendations are vital for directions on some of the key issues including base price of spectrum, amount of spectrum that should be allocated to a bidder and eligible participants.

Trai had issued consultation paper seeking views from the stake holders on the issues like the amount of spectrum to be auctioned, liberalisation and refarming of spectrum in 800/900 MHz bands, structure of auction and eligibility criteria for participation. Spectrum block size, reserve price, roll-out obligations, spectrum usage charges and trading were the other issues.

In the recommendations, Trai is expected to give out detailed guidelines on unified licences that will be issued to all telecom companies in future and will be delinked from spectrum.

Addressing the media Sarma said that the recommendations on the Unified Licensing regime should be submitted by next week.

Rai, in its draft guidelines on unified licences, has proposed a fee of Rs20 crore for a national-level unified licence under the new regime.

Under the new regime, it is proposed that there would be only four types of licences as against many across the communications sector at present.

The consultation paper showed 60 Mhz and 413.6 Mhz of spectrum will be vacated in 800 Mhz and 1800 Mhz spectrum bands respectively, from the cancellation of 122 2G licences ordered by the Supreme Court in February.