RCom dashes legal notice to DoT

Challenges decision on Trai formula for additional spectrum to GSM firms

NEW DELHI: A day after communications minister A Raja accepted the Bandopadhyay Committee report recommending telecom regulator Trai’s formula for allocation of additional spectrum to GSM mobile operators, CDMA rival Reliance Communications sent a legal notice to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) challenging its decision.

On Wednesday, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), representing the GSM players, had sent a legal notice to DoT asking it to refrain from allotting spectrum to CDMA operators or any new player before a decision of the Delhi High Court on the issue. The Delhi High Court’s next hearing on the COAI plea against DoT is on January 3.

According to the Reliance notice sent to the DoT secretary D S Mathur through law firm Agarwal Law Associates, the CDMA major has asked the department not to allocate any additional spectrum to any GSM operator in excess of the licence mandated amount of 4.4 and 6.2 MHz.

The notice has also argued that Trai norms should not be accepted for additional spectrum allocation, and that the criteria of TEC, the technical wing of DoT, should be followed, RCom has said.

The ADAG company has also said in its legal notice that the government should charge appropriate spectrum fee for the excess spectrum that existing GSM service providers have. Reliance has once again pointed out that any extra spectrum allocated to private GSM operators must be withdrawn by the government.
 
Meanwhile, Association of Unified Service Providers of India (AUSPI), representing CDMA players, on Thursday criticised COAI’s legal notice to the DoT. “The COAI seems to have assumed judicial powers more than the High Court of Delhi and has issued a stay order to DoT to not take further action as per the government policy,” said AUSPI secretary general SC Khanna. He added that “the legal notice clearly shows that whenever the GSM lobby is confronted with competition, it comes out with plans to thwart the competition.”

On the other hand, COAI director general T V Ramachandran, who on Wednesday had expressed satisfaction with the DoT move to go with the Bandopadhyay committee recommendation on the Trai formula for spectrum allocation, has now issued a clarification. “The Trai criteria may be accepted only as an interim solution in order to facilitate a way forward,” Ramachandran said on Thursday.