The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) plans to set-up a panel to recommend a test schedule which will verify the level of compliance to rollout obligations by broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum holders.
According to an internal document prepared by DoT, the four-member panel will be tasked to submit its report within a month. The panel will be responsible for coming up with a practicable and workable test schedule to verify the level of rollout obligation compliance specified for BWA bandwidth holders in the Notice Inviting Application (NIA).
As per the NIA issued for 3G and BWA spectrum auction held in 2010, a company holding broadband bandwidth should offer street level coverage and cover 90 per cent of the metro service area and 90 per cent of area within municipal boundaries in category A, B and C circles, within five years. In addition, NIA allows for the withdrawal of spectrum of players who fail to meet these rollout obligations.
At present, apart from Bharti Airtel, none of the other BWA licence holders have launched operations. Using its BWA spectrum, the operator has introduced 4G services in six cities namely Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chandigarh and Pune. Meanwhile, other BWA spectrum holders including Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, Aircel and Tikona Digital Networks are yet to launch services using BWA spectrum.
