The Hindu : Front Page : Spectrum: talks end in deadlock

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 22, 2007
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Spectrum: talks end in deadlock

Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI: Efforts to sort out the chaos in the telecom sector failed as the talks between the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and mobile service providers, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance Communications, to reach a consensus on the spectrum issue remained deadlocked after a prolonged meeting on Wednesday.

The meeting between Telecom Secretary D.S. Mathur and mobile operators lasted for about two hours.

Bharti Airtel Chairman and Managing Director Sunil Mittal, emerging from the meeting at Sanchar Bhavan, declined to answer queries from mediapersons, saying operators had been asked not to comment.

Official sources said that as there was no consensus among the operators, Mr. Mathur decided to individually meet the operators to elicit their opinion.

Sources said Reliance Communications Chairman Anil Dhirubhai Ambani raised the issue of extra spectrum being held by GSM operators.

He asked how over 6.2 MHz of radio waves had been given to GSM players beyond their contractual agreement. Some of the operators also demanded that Letter of Intent for telephony licences should be issued immediately as in the last two years the government has granted over 50 permissions or LoIs under the same policy.

Sources said Mr. Mathur gave a patient hearing to all and requested GSM operators to withdraw their petition from the Telecom Disputes Settlement & Appellate Tribunal. The Cellular Operators Association of India has challenged the government’s new norms, including enhanced subscriber base and allowing of dual technology by a single operator under the same licence.

Smaller mobile players HFCL and Shyam Telecom accused the DoT of adopting a discriminatory approach towards them after they wrote to DoT for ensuring that their views on spectrum allocation were heard.

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