India 3G services may miss deadline set by IT minister

March 11, 2007

The commencement of 3G services will most likely miss the second half of 2007 deadline set by communications and the Indian IT minister Dayanidhi Maran.

The reason: department of telecommunications (DoT) has decided to incorporate the inputs of the group of ministers (GoM) in the 3G spectrum policy.

The GoM, headed by external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, has the mandate is to look into the larger issue of vacation of spectrum by defence forces in a time-bound manner for the growth of mobile telephony and broadband in the country.

However, the GoM hasn't yet met on the issue. Sources said that the rules of business and the terms of reference of the GoM do not mandate DoT to wait for the GoM's report, if it decides to wait for it, the 3G-rollout process would certainly be delayed.

Industry sources said that if the DoT comes out with the policy during this month then the services could commence by the end of the year. Any further delay will surely see the services getting commissioned later than 2007.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had submitted its recommendations on 3G-spectrum allocation and pricing to the DoT towards the end of September 2006 and Maran had later said that DoT would take three months to come out with a policy so that the 3G services could start by the second half of 2007.

For 3G services, Trai had identified spectrum in 450 Mhz, 800 Mhz and 2.1 Ghz. It had estimated an availability of 32.5 Mhz over a period of six to nine months. Of this, 25 Mhz was to be made available in 2.1 Ghz, 5Mhz in 450-band and 1.25 Mhz in 800-band.

The 450 and 800 band has been reserved for CDMA operators, while 2.1 Ghz can be bid by both CDMA and GSM but for CDMA operators only in case they do not opt for the 450 and 800 band.

Sources said that spectrum in 800 Mhz and 2.1 Ghz was available and did not require any vacation by the defence forces and can be put for auction process as soon as the policy is finalised. Recently, the CDMA Development Group (CDG) wrote to the DoT, secretary, DS Mathur expressing concern that there could be more delay in the announcement of the 3G- spectrum policy.