The Department of Telecommunication (DoT)?s internal committee has observed that the issues around spectrum re-farming can be dealt with closer to when 2G licences auction come up for renewal.
DoT has made these observations following the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI?s) recommendations on re-farming which makes it necessary for telecom operators to shift from 900 Mhz and 800 Mhz bands to the 1800 Mhz and 1900 Mhz bands, respectively
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had said that the Government should initiate the re-farming process immediately. The regulator had said that all operators using the 900 Mhz and 800 Mhz bands should be shifted to the 1800 Mhz and 1900 Mhz bands respectively.
Incumbent operators including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular are the major users of 900 Mhz band and Reliance Communication and Tata Teleservices are on 800 Mhz band. They are seriously opposing the TRAI recommendations. The licences of these operators are supposed to come up for renewal starting 2014. The players claim that re-farming will result in millions of investment on their part thereby adding further pressure on their operations.
