GSM Lobby Fears CDMA’s Backdoor Entry Into 3G In India

The Economic Times: India has been a battleground for GSM and CDMA telecom operators. Latest was to fight on the spectrum issue. Now GSM operators are fearing that the forthcoming Telecom Regulatory Authority of India recommendations on spectrum would favour CDMA players. They fear that it will provide an extra carrier for the country’s largest CDMA player (read Reliance) an instantaneous ‘back-door’ entry to the 3G mobile services.
“Any provision of additional carriers now to CDMA players would be grossly anti-competitive as it would enable them to offer 3G services immediately via EVDO. Such move would benefit only the largest CDMA operator,” according to an internal spectrum note of Cellular Operators Association of India. “Thus a backdoor entry into 3G could be secured by the largest CDMA player while the GSM players (along with the second largest CDMA players) would be kept waiting till the IMT-2000 spectrum is made available to all.”

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