International Law

Gold Rush - The Race for Spectrum

By admin

In what is usually a sign of a maturing telecommunications market, sparks are flying over that classical scarce resource - spectrum! As India’s business houses race to corner larger slices of radio frequency allocated by the government for providing 2G wireless services, there is still this giant black hole called Sanchar Bhavan where no thought can penetrate and none emanates. No auctions here, gentleman, just line up outside and fight it out while we toss spectrum through the window. The mandarins just don’t seem to get it right. tap, tap.

In case you came in late, I’m referring to that highly imaginative first-come-first-serve policy for distributing spectrum to a whole lot if folks who’ve been given letters of intent by the government. And this, without elaborating on how this policy would work and what “first-come-first-serve” really means in this context. All while the government stands to gain in millions in license and spectrum fees.

They appeared to get it right when they accepted most of TRAI’s recommendations earlier this year on opening the sector to more players and restructuring the spectrum policy. And now they’re back to their old games. Maybe they should ask TRAI for a detailed how-to rather than a set of recommendations.

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Full post as published by Technology Law India on January 16, 2008 (boomark / email).