The GSM industry body (COAI) has requested the Department of Telecom (DoT) to correct anomalies regarding 800MHz spectrum. It has argued:
The price discovered for the band in the Mar15 auction should not be used as market-determined prices in circles where airwaves sold were less than 5MHz. Less than 5MHz cannot be used for 4G services and therefore operators didn?t bid for it. There are 12 circles where the quantum of spectrum auctioned was less than 5MHz.
The M&A criteria prescribed a 10MHz cap for 800MHz spectrum but the NIA (notice inviting application) for the March15 auction had mentioned an in-band cap of 50% due to which, it claims that some bidders couldn?t participate in the auction and thus ignoring this cap from perspective of spectrum trading would create inequality.
The matter however is yet to be decided by the DoT. Jio and RCOM?s potential trading of the latter?s 800MHz will have to await the DoT?s decision.
