The Telecom Commission, the highest apex body under Department of Telecommunications (DoT), has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to review its recommendations on spectrum sharing and trading guidelines. This comes as the government has sought clarification on certain issues. Accordingly, TRAI will send its final comments in 15 days, after which the guidelines will again be sent to the Telecom Commission.
Spectrum sharing, once implemented, will allow telecom companies to share their unutilised spectrum with other operators in the same telecom circle. Earlier in June 2014, TRAI had issued its recommendations on guidelines for spectrum sharing and trading. The telecom regulator had suggested sharing of all categories of spectrum held by operators, including spectrum allocated at old price of Rs 16.58 billion or assigned without auction. TRAI had also recommended trading of spectrum.
At present, the government allocates spectrum to telecom operators only through auctions. Once spectrum trading is allowed, it will lead to efficient use of frequency airwaves by enabling telecom operators with lower subscriber base or unutilised spectrum to trade it.
