New Delhi: Telecom regulator Trai on Thursday almost halved the base price of highly efficient 700 MHz spectrum band for any future auction from Rs 11,485 crore in 2016 to Rs 6,568 crore per MHz.
The decision to slash the price by 43 per cent was taken after the government found no takers for the 700 Mhz band at Rs 11,485-crore price in October 2016 auction.
The base price for pan-India 1800 MHz band was at fixed Rs 3,285 crore per megahertz, while the most advanced spectrum 5G would come for a base price of Rs 492 crore per megahertz.
In its first recommendations on 5G, Trai said 3,300-3,400 MHz and 3,400-3,600 MHz bands should be combined and treated as one band — 3,300-3,600 MHz band.
The regulator said spectrum in 3,300-3,600 MHz band should be put to auction in a big block size of 20 MHz. To avoid monopolisation of this band, there should be a limit of 100 MHz per bidder.
Trai said that barring the specific locations or districts where Isro is using the 25 MHz (3,400 MHz — 3,425 MHz) of spectrum, the entire spectrum from 3,300 MHz to 3,600 MHz should be made available for access services and should be included in the forthcoming auction.
Currently, 175 MHz spectrum in the 3,400-3,600 MHz band has been allotted to various Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in various districts of a service area. The telecom department has told Trai that these operators could be shifted to other bands.
Since Isro would be using this spectrum only at a few locations, Trai has decided to bar its allocation to private players only at such places and in other places it would be put to auction.
Trai said spectrum in frequency range 3300-4200 MHz is likely to emerge as a primary band for early 5G introduction. So a number of countries in different regions are taking action towards refarming 200-400 MHz of contiguous bandwidth in the 3300-4200 MHz frequency range for 5G.
During consultation, some telecom operators have asked Trai to allocate at least 50 to 100 MHz spectrum per operator for 5G developments. Most of the other stakeholders opined that the block size should be 10 MHz/20 MHz. However, there was a consensus on contiguity of spectrum.
To reap the real advantage of 5G, Trai said it is important that the larger contiguous chunk of spectrum is available with the telcos. So Trai said it is of the view that while assigning spectrum blocks, contiguity of spectrum blocks should be ensured. If a telco was able to win more than two blocks of spectrum in the auctions, it should be allocated spectrum in contiguous blocks.
