The Telecom Commission on Wednesday recommended existing mobile operators be required to fully give up airwaves in the superior 900 MHz band during licence renewal in 2014. GSM players say it will cost them over Rs 66,000 crores to replace infrastructure.
“The entire spectrum in 900 MHz will be refarmed,” said telecom secretary R. Chandrashekhar after a meeting of the panel. Mr Chandrashekhar, who heads the panel, said three options were put before the commission, including refarming (redistribution) of airwaves held by incumbent players, or allowing operators to retain either 2.5 Mhz or 5 Mhz airwave frequencies in 900 Mhz band.
This will now be placed before the EGoM headed by finance minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday.
The GSM operators’ body COAI said this will be their “death knell”, but the rival CDMA operators’ body AUSPI welcomed the move, saying it will create a “level playing field”.