EGOM defers spectrum pricing issue to Friday; lay out stricter roll-out obligations

19 Jul 2012 Evaluate

The much awaited meet of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Telecom for the contentious issue of a reserve price for the re-auction of 2G spectrum, was yet again deferred to Friday. Crucial aspects like pricing of spectrum, one-time fee, roll-out obligations, terms of payment and the timeline for selecting the auctioneer, were expected to be taken on board for discussion on Tuesday, by the EGoM under the chairmanship of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram who was asked to lead the EGoM on spectrum auction after Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar declined the job, apprehending controversy.

However, the ministerial panel, staying mum on rest of the issues, did manage to pencil down stricter roll-out obligations for successful bidders. Besides, the ministerial panel also mandated Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to sketch a fresh matrix on the impact of the reserve price chosen on government revenue and operators’ rates.

As per the new roll-out obligation, successful bidders will have to cover 10% of DHQs (district headquarters) by the third year, 20% of DHQs in the fourth year and 30% of DHQs by the fifth year. However, earlier the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had recommended the operators that win spectrum would have to cover 50% of villages, in three years, and 100% coverage of the country in four years.

With the industry crying foul, the Trai has proposed a near 10-fold rise in the auction’s starting price compared to what carriers paid in 2008. The regulator recommended 2G spectrum reserve price at Rs 3,622 crore per unit of spectrum in the 1800 MHz band, which translates to an amount of over Rs 18,000 crore for pan-India license, i.e. 13x of current base price of 2G and equivalent to 3G spectrum cost, where radio airwaves were vacated following the Supreme Court’s verdict on February 2 cancelling all the 122 spectrum licenses allotted in 2008 during the tenure of the former telecom minister A Raja.

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