Reliance Jio has suggested an alternative plan to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) under which spectrum required by non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite operators to run their gateway terminals should be auctioned geographically, based on districts, rather than circles as done for mobile services.
For spectrum which would be required to connect user terminals such as individual homes, Jio has suggested it should be auctioned frequency-wise and exclusively to an operator at a pan-India level. According to Jio, 100-200 districts can be identified in the country as many districts in border areas or shadow zones cannot be of use and these should be offered for auction. To ensure competition, no player can bid for more than 10 districts or 10 per cent of the total number of districts put under auction.
In the case of spectrum for linking user terminals, Jio has suggested an auction for pan-India spectrum with a minimum block size of 10 MHz and a cap of 30 per cent of the total blocks available in a band which could be allocated for 20 years. Further, the operator has suggested that the spectrum reserve price for the auction should be kept low at 50 per cent of the valuation of the spectrum instead of 70 per cent currently in telecom auctions.
Meanwhile, other players including OneWeb, Amazon’s Kuiper, Tata Communications, Hughes Communications, and industry bodies such as NASSCOM and Broadband India Forum have expressed their demand for space spectrum to be allocated administratively. The Department of Telecommunications, however, favours auctioning.
