Idea Cellular has written to Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications and IT requesting that the reserve price for 2G spectrum should be fixed at 2008 rates. The operator has also suggested that the entire spectrum vacated due to the cancellation of 122 licences in February 2012 should be put up for auction.
Idea Cellular has maintained that the recommendations by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) violate the Supreme Court directive. The company states that the order does not lend itself to mutilation by any reduction from 122, in the number of licenses to be auctioned.
As per the industry reports,, the letter written by Idea Cellular points out that if any of the operators? whose licence has been quashed, ends up winning in the auction, then the amount originally paid should be adjusted against the winning bid amount. Therefore, the reserve price should be the price paid in 2008, plus notional interest for the intervening period. The winner and the winning price must emerge from an auction.
Besides Idea Cellular other stakeholders such as the Cellular Operators Association of India and the Association of Unified Service Providers of India have also expressed their opposition to the TRAI recommendations on fresh allocation of 2G licenses.
If the TRAI?s 2G spectrum proposals are accepted then the incumbent players could end up paying Rs 500 billion for their licenses. The mobile operators are also opposing TRAI?s proposal to shift the operators from the existing 900 MHz band to the 1800 Mhz band on grounds of level playing field. Shifting to a new band would entail fresh investments from operators.
